ENGLISH SEAMEN
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
FROUDE'S WORKS.
History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death
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English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century. 8vo.
ENGLISH SEAMEN
IN
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
LECTURES DELIVERED AT OXFORD
EASTER TERMS, 1893-4
/
JAMES ANTHONY FEOUDE
LATE KEGICS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
5ui36'
NEW YORK
CHAELES SCKIBNEE'S SONS
1895
[All rights reserved]
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A «^^
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Copyright, 1S95, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKB-NOINQ COMPANY
NEW YORK
CONTENTS
LECTURE I
PAGE
The Sea Cradle op the Reformation, ... 1
LECTURE II
John Hawkins and the African Slave Trade, . 26
LECTURE III
Sir John Hawkins and Philip the Second, . . 50
LECTURE IV
Drake's Voyage Round the World, .... 75
LECTURE V
Parties in the State, 104
LECTURE VI
The Great Expedition to the West Indies, . . 130
LECTURE VII
Attack on Cadiz, 153
LECTURE VIII
Sailing of the Armada, 176
LECTURE IX
Defeat of the Armada, 201
ENGLISH SEAMEN
THE SIXTEENTH CENTUKY
LECTURE I
THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFOEMATION
Jean Paul, the German poet, said that God had
given to France the empire of the land, to England
the empire of the sea, and to his own country the
empire of the air. The world has changed since
Jean Paul's days. The wings of France have been
clipj)ed; the German Empire has become a solid
thing ; but England still holds her watery dominion ;
Britannia does still rule the waves, and in this
proud position she has spread the English race
over the globe ; she has created the great American
nation ; she is peopling new Englands at the
Antipodes ; she has made her Queen Empress of
India ; and is in fact the very considerable pheno-
menon in the social and political world which all
acknowledge her to be. And all this she has
achieved in the course of three centuries, entirely
in consequence of her predominance as an ocean
power. Take away her merchant fleets ; take away
2 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
the navy that guards them : her empire will come
to an end ; her colonies will fall off, like leaves from
a withered tree; and Britain Avill become once
more an insignificant island in the North Sea, for
the future students in Australian and New Zealand
imiversities to discuss the fate of in their debating
societies.
How the English navj came to hold so extra-
ordinary a position is worth reflecting on. Much
has been written about it, but little, as it seems to
me, which touches the heart of the matter. We
are shown the power of our country growing and
expanding. But how it grew, why, after a sleep of
so many hundred years, the genius of our Scandina-
vian forefathers suddenly sprang again into life— of
this we are left without explanation.
The beginning was undoubtedly the defeat of the
Spanish Armada in 1588. Down to that time the
sea sovereignty belonged to the Spaniards, and had
been fairly won by them. The conquest of Granada
had stimulated and elevated the Spanish character.
The subjects of Ferdinand and Isabella, of Charles
V. and Philip II., were extraordinary men, and ac-
complished extraordinary things. They stretched
the limits of the knoAvn world; they conquered
Mexico and Peru ; they planted their colonies over
the South American continent ; they took posses-
sion of the great West Indian islands, and Avith so
firm a grasp that Cuba at least will never lose the
mark of the hand which seized it. They built their
cities as if for eternity. They spread to the Indian
The Sea Cradle of the Reformation 3
Ocean, and gave their monarch's name to the Philip-
pines. All this they accomplished in half a century,
and, as it were, they did it with a single hand ; witli
the other they were fighting Moors and Turks and
protecting the coast of the Mediterranean from the
corsairs of Tunis and Constantinople.
They had risen on the crest of the wave, and
with their proud Non sufficit orbis were looking for
new worlds to conquer, at a time when the bark of
the English water-dogs had scarcely been heard
beyond their own fishing grounds, and the largest
merchant vessel sailing from the port of London was
scarce bigger than a modern coasting collier. And
yet within the space of a single ordinary life these
insignificant islanders had struck the sceptre from
the Spaniards' grasp and placed the ocean crown
on the brow of their own sovereign. How did it
come about? What Cadmus had sown dragons'
teeth in the furrows of the sea for the race to spring
from who manned the ships of Queen Elizabeth,
who carried the flag of their own country round the
globe, and challenged and fought the Spaniards on
their own coasts and in their own harbom's?
The English sea power was the legitimate child
of the Reformation. It grew, as I shall show you,
directly out of the new despised Protestantism.
Matthew Parker and Bishop Jewel, the judicious
Hooker himself, excellent men as they were, would
have written and preached to small purpose with-
out Sir Francis Drake's cannon to play an accom-
paniment to their teaching. And again, Drake's
4 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
cannon would not have roared so loudly and so
widely without seamen already trained in heart and
hand to work his ships and level his artillery. It
was to the superior seamanship, the superior quality
of English ships and crews, that the Spaniards at-
tributed their defeat. Where did these ships come
from? Where and how did these mariners learn
their trade ? Historians talk enthusiastically of the
national spirit of a people rising with a united heart
to repel the invader, and so on. But national spirit
could not extemporise a fleet or produce trained of-
ficers and sailors to match the conquerors of Le-
panto. One slight observation I must make here
at starting, and certainly with no invidious purpose.
It has been said confidently, it has been repeated,
I believe, by all modern writers, that the Spanish
invasion suspended in England the quarrels of
creed, and united Protestants and Roman Catholics
in defence of their Queen and country. They re-
mind us especially that Lord Howard of Effingham,
who was Elizabeth's admiral, was himself a Roman
Catholic. But was it so? The Earl of Arundel,
the head of the House of Howard, was a Roman
Catholic, and he was in the Tower praying for the suc-
cess of Medina Sidonia. Lord Howard of Efiingham
was no more a Roman Catholic than — I hope I am not
taking away their character — than the present Arch-
bishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London. He
was a Catholic, but an English Catholic, as those
reverend prelates are. Roman Catholic he could
not possibly have been, nor anyone who on that
The Sea Cradle of the Beforination 5
great occasion was found on the side of Elizabetli.
A Roman Catholic is one who acknowledges the
Roman Bishop's authority. The Pope had excom-
municated Elizabeth, had pronounced her deposed,
had absolved her subjects from their allegiance, and
forbidden them to fight for her. No Englishman
who fought on that great occasion for English lib-
erty Avas, or could have been, in communion with
Rome. Loose statements of this kind, lightly made,
fall in with the modern humour. They are caught
up, applauded, repeated, and pass unquestioned into
history. It is time to correct them a little.
I have in my possession a detailed account of the
temper of parties in England, drawn up in the year
1585, three years before the Armada came. The
writer was a distinguished Jesuit. The account it-
self was prepared for the use of the Pope and Philip,
with a special view to the reception which an in-
vading force would meet with, and it goes into great
detail. The people of the towns — London, Bristol,
&c. — were, he says, generally heretics. The peers,
the gentry, their tenants, and peasantry, who formed
the immense majority of the population, were almost
universally Catholics. But this writer distinguishes
properly among Catholics. There were the ardent
impassioned Catholics, ready to be confessors and
martyrs, ready to rebel at the first opportunity, who
had renounced their allegiance, who desired to over-
throw Elizabeth and put the Queen of Scots in her
place. The number of these, he says, was daily in-
creasing, owing to the exertions of the seminary
6 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
priests ; and plots, lie boasts, were being continually
formed by them to murder the Queen. There were
Catholics of another sort, who were papal at heart,
but went with the times to save their property ; who
looked forward to a change in the natural order of
things, but would not stir of themselves till an in-
vading army actually appeared. But all alike, he
insists, were eager for a revolution. Let the Prince
of Parma come, and they would all join him; and
together these two classes of Catholics made three-
fourths of the nation.
'The only party,' he says (and this is really no-
ticeable), 'the only party that would fight to death
for the Queen, the only real friends she had, were
the Puritans (it is the ^ first mention of the name
which I have found), the Puritans of London, the
Puritans of the sea towns.' These he admits were
dangerous, desperate, determined men. The num-
bers of them, however, were providentially small.
The date of this document is, as I said, 1585, and
I believe it generally accurate. The only mistake
is that among the Anglican Catholics there were a
few to whom their country was as dear as their
creed — a few who were beginning to see that under
the Act of Uniformity Catholic doctrine might be
taught and Catholic ritual practised; who adhered
to the old forms of religion, but did not believe that
obedience to the Pope was a necessary part of them.
One of these was Lord Howard of Efiingham, whom
the Queen placed in his high command to secure the
wavering fidelity of the peers and country gentle-
The Sea Cradle of ike Reformation 7
men. But the force, the tire, the enthusiasm came
(as the Jesuit saw) from the Puritans, from men of
the same convictions as the Calviuists of Holland
and Rochelle ; men who, driven from the land, took
to the ocean as their natural home, and nm'sed the
Reformation in an ocean cradle. How the seagoing
population of the North of Europe took so strong a
Protestant impression it is the purpose of these
lectures to explain.
Henry VIII. on coming to the throne found Eng-
land without a fleet, and without a conscious sense
of the need of one. A few merchant hulks traded
with Bordeaux and Cadiz and Lisbon ; hoys and fly-
boats drifted slowly backwards and forwards between
Antwerp and the Thames. A fishing fleet tolerably
appointed went annually to Iceland for cod. Local
fishermen worked the North Sea and the Channel
from Hull to Falmouth. The Chester people went
to Kinsale for herrings and mackerel : but that was
all — the nation had aspired to no more.
Columbus had offered the New World to Henry
VII. while the discovery was still in the air. He
had sent his brother to England with maps and
globes, and quotations from Plato to prove its exist-
ence, Henry, like a practical Englishman, treated
it as a wild dream.
The dream had come from the gate of horn.
America was found, and the Spaniard, and not the
English, came into first possession of it. Still,
America was a large place, and John Cabot the
Venetian with his son Sebastian tried Henry again.
8 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
England might still be able to secui'e a slice. This
time Henry VII. listened. Two small ships were
fitted out at Bristol, crossed the Atlantic, discovered
Newfoundland, coasted down to Florida looking for
a passage to Cathay, but could not find one. The
elder Cabot died; the younger came home. The
expedition failed, and no interest had been roused.
With the accession of Henry VIII. a new era had
opened — a new era in many senses. Printing was
coming into use — Erasmus and his companions were
shaking Europe with the new learning, Copernican
astronomy was changing the level disk of the earth
into a revolving globe, and turning dizzy the
thoughts of mankind. Imagination was on the
stretch. The reality of things was assuming propor-
tions vaster than fancy had dreamt, and unfastening
established belief on a thousand sides. The young
Henry was welcomed by Erasmus as likely to be the
glory of the age that was opening. He was young,
brilliant, cultivated, and ambitious. To what might
he not aspire under the new conditions! Henry
VIII. was all that, but he was cautious and looked
about him. Europe was full of wars in which ho
was likely to be entangled. His father had left the
treasui-y well furnished. The young King, like a
wise man, turned his first attention to the broad
ditch, as he called the British Channel, which formed
the natm-al defence of the realm. The opening of
the Atlantic had revolutionised war and seamanship.
Long voyages required larger vessels. Henry was
the first prince to see the place which gunpowder
The Sea Cradle of the lleformation 9
was going to hold iu wars. lu liis first years he re-
paired his dockyards, built uew ships ou improved
models, and imported Italians to cast him new types
of cannon. ' King Harry loved a man,' it was said,
and knew a man when he saw one. He made ac-
quaintance with sea captains at Portsmouth and
Southampton. In some way or other he came to
know one Mr. William Hawkins, of Plymouth, and
held him in especial esteem. This Mr. Hawkins,
under Henry's patronage, ventured down to the
coast of Guinea and brought home gold and ivory ;
crossed over to Brazil ; made friends with the Bra-
zilian natives; even brought back with him the
king of those countries, who was curious to see what
England was like, and presented him to Henry at
Whitehall.
Another Plymouth man, Kobert Thome, again
with Henry's help, went out to look for the North-
west passage which Cabot had failed to find.
Thome's ship was called the Dominus Vohiscum, a
pious aspiration which, however, secured no suc-
cess. A London man, a Master Hore, tried next.
Master Hore, it is said, was given to cosmography,
was a plausible talker at scientific meetings, and so on.
He persuaded ' divers young lawyers ' (briefless bar-
risters, I suppose) and other gentlemen — altogether
a hundred and twenty of them — to join him. They
procured two vessels at Gravesend. They took the
sacrament together before sailing. They apparently
relied on Providence to take care of them, for they
made little other preparation. They reached New-
10 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
foundlaud, but tlieir stores ran out, aud their ships
went on shore. In the land of fish they did not
know how to use line and bait. They fed on roots
and bilberries, and picked fish bones out of the
ospreys' nests. At last they began to eat one an-
other— careless of Master Hore, who told them they
would go to unquenchable fire. A French vessel
came in. They seized her with the food she had
on board and sailed home in her, leaving the French
crew to their fate. The poor French happily found
means of following them. They complained of their
treatment, and Henry ordered an inquiry ; but find-
ing, the report says, the gTeat distress Master Hore's
party had been in, was so moved with pity, that he
did not punish them, but out of his own jjurse
made royal recompense to the French.
Something better than gentlemen volunteers was
needed if naval enterprise was to come to anything
in England. The long wars between Francis I. and
Charles V. brought the problem closer. On land
the fighting was between the regular armies. At sea
privateers were let loose out of French, Flemish,
and Spanish ports. Enterprising individuals took
out letters of marque and went cruising to take the
chance of what they could catch. The Channel was
the chief hunting-ground, as being the highway be-
tween Spain and the Low Countries. The interval
was short between privateers and j)irates. Vessels
of all sorts passed into the business. The Scilly
Isles became a pirate stronghold. The creeks and
estuaries in Cork and Kerry furnished hiding-
Tlie Sea Cradle of the Reformation 11
places where the rovers could lie with security aucl
share their plunder with the Irish chiefs. The dis-
order grew wilder when the divorce of Catherine of
Aragon made Henry into the public enemy of Papal
Eui'ope. English traders and fishing smacks were
plundered and sunk. Their crews went armed to
defend themselves, and from Thames mouth to
Land's End the Channel became the scene of des-
perate fights. The type of vessel altered to suit
the new conditions. Life depended on speed of
sailing. The State Papers describe squadrons of
French or Spaniards flying about, dashing into
Dartmouth, Plymouth, or Falmouth, cutting out
English coasters, or fighting one another.
After Henry w^as excommunicated, and Ireland
rebelled, and England itself threatened disturbance,
the King had to look to his security. He made lit-
tle noise about it. But the Spanish ambassador re-
ported him as silently building ships in the Thames
and at Portsmouth. As invasion seemed imminent,
he began with sweeping the seas of the looser vermin.
A few swift well-armed cruisers pushed suddenly
out of the Solent, caught and destroyed a pirate
fleet in Mount's Bay, sent to the bottom some
Flemish privateers in the Downs, and captured the
Flemish admiral himself. Danger at home growing
more menacing, and the monks spreading the fire
which grew into the PilgTimage of Grace, Henry
suppressed the abbeys, sold the lands, and with the
proceeds armed the coast with fortresses. ' You
threaten me,' he seemed to say to them, ' that you
12 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
will use the wealtli our fathers gave you to over-
throw my Government and bring in the invader, I
will take youi* wealth, and I will use it to disap-
point your treachery.' You may see the remnants
of Henry's work in the fortresses anywhere along
the coast from Berwick to the Land's End.
Louder thundered the Vatican. In 1539 Henry's
time appeared to have come. France and Spain
made peace, and the Pope's sentence was now ex-
pected to be executed by Charles or Francis, or
both. A crowd of vessels large and small was col-
lected in the Scheldt, for what purpose save to
transport an army into England? Scotland had
joined the Catholic League. Henry fearlessly ap-
jiealed to the English people. Catholic peers and
priests might conspire against him, but, explain it
how we will, the nation was loyal to Henry and
came to his side. The London merchants armed
their ships in the river. From the seaports every-
Avhere came armed brigantines and sloops. The
fishermen of the West left their boats and nets to
their wives, and the fishing was none the worse, for
the women handled oar and sail and line and went
to the whiting grounds, while their husbands had
gone to fight for their King. Genius kindled into
discovery at the call of the country. Mr. Fletcher
of Rye (be his name remembered) invented a boat
the like of which was never seen before, which
would work to windward, with sails trimmed fore
and aft, the greatest revolution yet made in ship-
building. A hundred and fifty sail collected at
The Sea Cradle of the Reformation 13
Sandwich to match, the armament in the Scheldt ;
and Marillac, the French ambassador, reported with
amazement the energy of King and people.
The Catholic Powers thought better of it. This
was not the England which Reginald Pole had
told them was longing for their appearance. The
Scheldt force dispersed. Henry read Scotland
a needed lesson. The Scots had thought to take
him at disadvantage, and sit on his back when
the Emperor attacked him. One morning when
the people at Leith woke out of their sleep, they
found an English fleet in the Roads ; and before
they had time to look about them, Leith was on
fire and Edinburgh was taken. Charles V., if he
had ever seriously thought of invading Henry, re-
turned to wiser counsels, and made an alliance
with him instead. The Pope turned to France.
If the Emperor forsook him, the Most Chris-
tian King would help. He promised Francis
that if he could win England he might keep it
for himself. Francis resolved to try what he
could do.
Five years had passed since the gathering at
Sandwich. It was now the summer of 1544. The
records say that the French collected at Havre
near 300 vessels, fighting ships, galleys, and trans-
ports. Doubtless the numbers are far exaggerated,
but at any rate it was the largest force ever yet got
together to invade England, capable, if well handled,
of bringing Henry to his knees. The plan was to
seize and occupy the Isle of Wight, destroy the
14 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
English fleet, then take Portsmouth and Southamp-
ton, and so advance on London.
Henry's attention to his navy had not slackened.
He had built ship on ship. The Great Harry was a
thousand tons, carried 700 men, and was the won-
der of the day. There were a dozen others scarcely
less imposing. The King called again on the na-
tion, and again the nation answered. In England
altogether there were 150,000 men in arms in field
or garrison. In the King's fleet at Portsmouth
there were 12,000 seamen, and the privateers of the
West crowded up eagerly as before. It is strange,
with the notions which we have allowed oui'selves
to form of Henry, to observe the enthusiasm with
which the whole country, as yet undivided by
doctrinal quarrels, rallied a second time to defend
him.
In this Portsmouth fleet lay undeveloped the
genius of the future naval greatness of England.
A small fact connected with it is worth recording.
The watchword on board was ' God save the King ' ;
the answer was, ' Long to reign over us ' : the
earliest germ discoverable of the English National
Anthem.
The King had come himself to Portsmouth to
witness the expected attack. The fleet was com-
manded by Lord Lisle, afterwards Duke of North-
umberland. It was the middle of July. The
French crossed from Havre unfought with, and
anchored in St. Helens Roads off Brading Harbour.
The English, being greatly inferior in numbers, lay
The Sea Cradle of the Beformation 15
waiting for them inside the Spit. The morning
after the French came in was still and sultry. The
English could not move for want of wind. The
galleys crossed over and engaged them for two or
three hom-s with some advantage. The breeze rose
at noon ; a few fast sloops got under way and
easily drove them back. But the same breeze
which enabled the English to move brought a
serious calamity with it. The Mary Rose, one of
Lisle's finest vessels, had been under the fire of the
galleys. Her ports had been left open, and when
the wind sprang up, she heeled over, filled, and
went down, carrying two hundred men along with
her. The French saw her sink, and thought their
own guns had done it. They hoped to follow up
their success. At night they sent over boats to
take soundings, and discover the way into the
harbour. The boats reported that the sandbanks
made the approach impossible. The French had
no clear plan of action. They tried a landing in
the island, but the force was too small, and failed.
They weighed anchor and brought up again behind
Selsea Bill, where Lisle proposed to run them
down in the dark, taking advantage of the tide.
But they had an enemy to deal with worse than
Lisle, on board their own ships, which explained
their distracted movements. Hot weather, putrid
meat, and putrid water had prostrated whole ships'
companies with dysentery. After a three weeks'
ineffectual cruise they had to hasten back to Havre,
break up, and disperse. The first great armament
16 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
which was to have recovered England to the
Papacy had effected nothing. Henry had once
more shown his strength, and was left undisputed
master of the narrow seas.
So matters stood for what remained of Henry's
reign. As far as he had gone, he had quarrelled
with the Pope, and had brought the Church under
the law. So far the country generally had gone
with him, and there had been no violent changes
in the administration of religion. When Henry
died the Protector abolished the old creed, and
created a new and perilous cleavage between
Protestant and Catholic, and, while England needed
the protection of a navy more than ever, allowed
the fine fleet which Henry had left to fall into decay.
The spirit of enterprise grew with the Reformation,
Merchant companies opened trade with Russia and
the Levant; adventurous sea captains went to
Guinea for gold. Sir Hugh Willoughby followed
the phantom of the North-west Passage, tm-ning
eastward round the North Cape to look for it, and
perished in the ice. English commerce was begin-
ning to grow in spite of the Protector's experiments ;
but a new and infinitely dangerous element had
been introduced by the change of religion into the
relations of English sailors with the Catholic Powers,
and especially with Spain. In their zeal to keep
out heresy, the Spanish Government placed their
harbours under the control of the Holy Ofiice.
Any vessel in which an heretical book was found
was confiscated, and her crew carried to the Inqui-
The Sen Oradle of the Reformation 17
sition prisons. It had begun in Henry's time.
The Inquisitors attempted to treat schism as heresy
and arrest EngHshmen in their ports. But Henry
spoke up stoutly to Charles V., and the Holy Office
had been made to hold its hand. All was altered
now. It was not necessary that a poor sailor should
have been found teaching heresy. It was enough
if he had an English Bible and Prayer Book with
him in his kit ; and stories would come into Dart-
mouth or Plymouth how some lad that everybody
knew — Bill or Jack or Tom, who had wife or father
or mother among them, perhaps — had been seized
hold of for no other crime, been flung into a dun-
geon, tortured, starved, set to work in the galleys,
or burned in a fool's coat, as they called it, at an
auto da fe at Seville.
The object of the Inquisition Avas partly politi-
cal: it was meant to embarrass trade and make
the people impatient of changes which produced
so much inconvenience. The effect was exactly the
opposite. Such accounts Avhen brought home
created fury. There grew up in the seagoing
population an enthusiasm of hatred for that holy
institution, and a passionate desire for revenge.
The natural remedy would have been war ; but
the division of nations was crossed by the division
of creeds ; and each nation had allies in the heart of
every other. If England went to war with Spain,
Spain could encourage insurrection among the
Catholics. If Spain or France declared war against
England, England could help the Huguenots or the
2
IS English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Holland Calvinists. All Governments were afraid
alike of a general war of religion A\liicli might sliake
Em-ope in pieces. Thus individuals were left to
their natural impulses. The Holy Office burnt
English or French Protestants wherever it could
catch them. The Protestants revenged their in-
juries at their own risk and in their own way, and
thus from Edward VI.'s time to the end of the
century privateering came to be the special occupa-
tion of adventurous honourable gentlemen, who could
serve God, their country, and themselves in ligh ting-
Catholics. Fleets of these dangerous vessels swept
the Channel, lying in Avait at Scill}^, or even at the
Azores — disowned in public by their own Govern-
ments while secretly countenanced, making war on
their own account on what they called the enemies
of God. In such a business, of course, there were
many mere pirates engaged who cared neither for
God nor man. But it was the Protestants who
were specially impelled into it by the cruelties of
the Inquisition. The Holy Office began the Avork
with the autos da fL The privateers robbed, burnt,
and scuttled Catholic ships in retaliation. One
fierce deed produced another, till right and wrong
were obscured in the passion of religious hatred.
Vivid pictm-es of these wild doings survive in the
English and Spanish State Papers. Ireland was
the rovers' favourite haunt. In the universal
anarchy there, a little more or a little less did not
signify. Notoi'ious pirate captains were to be met
in Cork or Kinsale, collecting stores, casting
TJie Sea Cradle of the Reformation 19
cannon, or selling their prizes — men of all sorts,
from fanatical saints to undisguised ruffians. Here
is one incident out of many to show the heights to
which temper had risen.
* Long peace,' says someone, addressing the
Privy Council early in Elizabeth's time, 'becomes
by force of the Spanish Inquisition more hurtful
than open war. It is the secret, determined policy
of Spain to destroy the English fleet, pilots, masters
and sailors, by means of the Inquisition. The
Spanish King pretends he dares not offend the Holy
House, while we in England say we may not pro-
claim war against Spain in revenge of a few. Not
long since the Spanish Inquisition executed sixty
persons of St. Malo, notwithstanding entreaty to
the King of Spain to spare them. Whereupon the
Frenchmen armed their pinnaces, lay for the
Spaniards, took a hundred and beheaded them,
sending the Spanish ships to the shore with their
heads, leaving in each ship but one man to render
the cause of the revenge. Since which time Spanish
Inquisitors have never meddled with those of St.
Malo.'
A colony of Huguenot refugees had settled on
the coast of Florida. The Spaniards heard of it,
came from St. Domingo, burnt the town, and hanged
every man, woman, and child, leaving an inscription
explaining that the poor creatures had been IdUed,
not as Frenchmen, but as heretics. Domenique de
Gourges, of Kochelle, heard of tliis fine exploit of
fanaticism, equipped a ship, and sailed across. He
20 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
cauglit the Spanish garrison which had been left
in occupation and swung them on the same trees —
with a second scroll saying that they were dangling
there, not as Spaniards, but as murderers.
The genius of adventui'o tempted men of highest
birth into the rovers' ranks. Sir Thomas Seymour,
the Protector's brother and the King's uncle, was
Lord High Admiral. In his time of office, com-
plaints were made by foreign merchants of ships
and property seized at the Thames mouth. No
redress could bo had ; no restitution made ; no
pirate was even punished, and SeymoiU''s personal
followers were seen suspiciously decorated with
Spanish ornaments. It appeared at last that Sey-
mour had himself bought the Scilly Isles, and if he
could not have his way at Court, it was said that
he meant to set up there as a pirate chief.
The persecution under Mary brought in more
respectable recruits than Seymour. The younger
generation of the Avestern families had grown with
the times. If they were not theologically Protes-
tant, they detested tyranny. They detested the
marriage with Philip, which threatened the indepen-
dence of England. At home they were powerless,
but the sons of honourable houses — Strangways,
Tremaynes, Staffords, Horseys, Carews, Killegrews,
and Cobhams — dashed out upon the water to re-
venge the Smithfield massacres. They found help
where it could least have been looked for. Henry
II. of France hated heresy, but he hated Spain
worse. Sooner than see Enaland absorbed in the
The Sea Cradle of the Reformation 21
Spanish monarchy, he forgot his bigotry iu his poli-
tics. He furuishecl these young mutineers with ships
and money and letters of marque. The Huguenots
were their natural friends. With Rochelle for an
arsenal, they held the mouth of the Channel, and
harassed the communications between Cadiz and
Antwerp. It was a wild business : enterprise and
buccaneering sanctified by religion and hatred of
cruelty ; but it was a school like no other for sea-
manship, and a school for the building of vessels
which could outsail all others on the sea ; a school,
too, for the training up of hardy men, in whose
blood ran detestation of the Inquisition and the In-
quisition's master, "^very other trade was swallowed
up or colom-ed by privateering ; the merchantmen
v/ent armed, ready for any work that offered ; the
Iceland fleet went no more in search of cod ; the
Channel boatmen forsook nets and lines and took
to livelier occupations ; Mary was too busy burning
heretics to look to the police of the seas ; her
father's fine ships rotted in harbom- ; her father's
coast-forts were deserted or dismantled; she lost
Calais ; she lost the hearts of her people in forcing
them into orthodoxy ; she left the seas to the priva-
teers ; and no trade flourished, save what the Catho-
lic powers called piracy.
When Elizabeth came to the throne, the whole
merchant navy of England engaged in lawful com-
merce amounted to no more than 50,000 tons. You
may see more now i^assiug every day through the
Gull Stream. In the service of the Crown there
22 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
were but seven revenue cruisers in commission, the
largest 120 tons, with eight merchant brigs altered
for fighting. In harbour there were still a score of
large ships, but they were dismantled and rotting ;
of artillery fit for sea work there was none. The
men were not to be had, and, as Sir William Cecil
said, to fit out ships without men was to set armour
on stakes on the sea-shore. The mariners of Eng-
land were otherwise engaged, and in a way which
did not please Cecil. He was the ablest minister
that Elizabeth had. He saw at once that on the
navy the prosperity and even the liberty of England
must eventually depend. If England were to re-
main Protestant, it was not by articles of religion or
acts of uniformity that she could be saved without a
fleet at the back of them. But he was old-fashioned.
He believed in law and order, and he has left a
curious paper of reflections on the situation. The
ships' companies in Henry VIII.'s days were re-
cruited from the fishing smacks, but the Reforma-
tion itself had destroyed the fishing trade. In old
times, Cecil said, no flesh was eaten on fish days.
The King himself could not have license. Now to
eat beef or mutton on fish days was the test of a
true believer. The English Iceland fishery used to
supply Normandy and Brittany as well as England.
Now it had passed to the French. The Chester men
used to fish the Irish seas. Now they had left them
to the Scots. The fishermen had taken to privateer-
ing because the fasts of the Church were neglected.
He saw it was so. He recorded his own opinion
The Sea Cradle of the Beforinatlon 23
that piracy, as lie called it, was detestable, and conld
not last. He was to find that it could last, that it
was to form the special discipline of the generation
whose business would be to fight the Spaniards,
But he struggled hard against the unwelcome con-
clusion. He tried to revive lawful trade by a Navi-
gation Act. He tried to restore the fisheries by Act
of Parliament. He introduced a Bill recommending
godly abstinence as a means to virtue, making the
eating of meat on Fridays and Saturdays a misde-
meanour, and adding Wednesday as a half fish-day.
The House of Commons laughed at him as bringing
ba.ck Popish mummeries. To please the Protestants
he inserted a clause, that the statute was politicly
meant for the increase of fishermen and mariners,
not for any superstition in the choice of meats ; but
it was no use. The Act was called in mockery
* Cecil's Fast,' and the recovery of the fisheries had
to wait till the natural inclination of human stom-
achs for fresh whiting and salt cod should revive
of itself.
Events had to take their course. Seamen were
duly provided in other ways, and such as the time
required. Privateering suited Elizabeth's conven-
ience, and suited her disposition. She liked daring
and adventure. She liked men who Avould do her
work without being paid for it, men Avhom she could
disown when expedient ; who would understand her,
and would not resent it. She knew her turn was to
come when Philip had leisure to deal with her, if
she could not secure herself meanwhile. Time was
24 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
wanted to restore the navy. The privateers were a
resource in the interval. They might be called pi-
rates while there was formal peace. The name did
not signify. They were really the armed force of the
country. After the war broke out in the Nether-
lauds, they had commissions from the Prince of
Orange. Such commissions would not save them if
taken by Spain, but it enabled them to sell their
prizes, and for the rest they trusted to their speed
and their guns. When Elizabeth vras at war with
France about Havre, she took the most noted of
them into the service of the Crown. Ned Horsey
became Sir Edward and Governor of the Isle of
Wight ; Strangways, a Red Eover in his way, who
had been the terror of the Spaniards, was killed be-
fore Rouen ; Tremayne fell at Havre, mourned over
by Elizabeth ; and Champernowne, one of the most
gallant of the whole of them, was killed afterwards at
Coligny's side at Moncoutour.
But others took their places : the wild hawks as
thick as seagulls flashing over the waves, fair wind
or foul, laughing at pursuit, brave, reckless, devoted,
the crews the strangest medley: English from the
Devonshire and Cornish creeks, Huguenots from
Rochelle ; Irish kernes with long skenes, ' desj^erate,
unruly persons with no kind of mercy.'
The Holy Office meanwhile went on in cold,
savage resolution : the Holy Office which had begmi
the business and was the cause of it,
A note in Cecil's hand says that in the one year
1562 twenty-six English subjects had been burnt at
The Sea Cradle of the Reformation 25
the stake in diflerent parts of Spain. Teu times as
many were starving in Spanish dungeons, from
which occasionally, by happy accident, a cry could
be heard like this which follows. In 1561 an
English merchant writes from the Canaries :
' I was taken by those of the Inquisition twenty
months past, put into a little dark house two paces
long, loaded with irons, without sight of sun or
moon all that time. When I was arraigned I was
charged that I should say our mass was as good as
theirs ; that I said I would rather give money to
the poor than buy Bulls of Home with it. I was
charged with being a subject to the Queen's grace,
who, they said, was enemy to the faith, Antichrist,
mth other opprobrious names ; and I stood to the
defence of the Queen's Majesty, proving the in-
famies most untrue. Then I was put into Little
Ease again, protesting very innocent blood to be
demanded against the judge before Christ.'
The innocent blood of these poor victims had
not to wait to be avenged at the Judgment Day.
The account was presented shortly and promptly at
the cannon's mouth.
LECTURE II
JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE
I BEGIN this lecture with a petition addressed to
Queen Elizabeth. Thomas Seely, a merchant of
Bristol, hearing a Spaniard in a Spanish port utter
foul and slanderous charges against the Queen's
character, knocked him down. To knock a man
down for telling lies about Elizabeth might be a
breach of the peace, but it had not yet been de-
clared heresy. The Holy Office, however, seized
Seely, threw him into a dungeon, and kept him
starving there for three years, at the end of which
he contrived to make his condition known in
England. The Queen wrote herself to Philip to
protest. Philip would not interfere. Seely re-
mained in prison and in irons, and the result was a
petition from his wife, in which the temper which
was rising can be read as in letters of fire.
Dorothy Seely demands that 'the friends of her
Majesty's subjects so imprisoned and tormented in
Spain may make out ships at their proper charges,
take such Inquisitors or other Papistical subjects
of the King of Spain as they can by sea or land,
and retain them in prison with such torments and
diet as her Majesty's subjects be kept with in
John Hawkins and the African Slave Trade 27
Spain, aud on complaint made by the King to give
such answer as is now made wlien her Majesty
sues for subjects imprisoned by the Inquisition.
Or that a Commission be granted to the Archbishop
of Canterbury and the other bishops word for word
for foreign Papists as the Inquisitors have in Spain
for the Protestants. So that all may know that her
Majesty cannot and will not longer endure the
spoils and torments of her subjects, and the Span-
iards shall not think this noble realm dares not
seek revenge of such importable wi'ongs.'
Elizabeth issued no such Commission as Dorothy
Seely asked for, but she did leave her subjects to
seek their revenge in their own way, and they
sought it sometimes too rashly.
In the summer of 1563 eight English merchant-
men anchored in the roads of Gibraltar. England
and France were then at war. A French brig came
in after them, and brought up near. At sea, if
they could take her, she would have been a lawful
prize. Spaniards under similar circumstances had
not respected the neutrality of English harbours.
The Englishmen were perhaps in doubt what to
do, when the officers of the Holy Office came off to
the French ship. The sight of the black familiars
drove the English wild. Three of them made a
dash at the French ship, intending to sink her.
The inquisitors sprang into their boat, and rowed
for their lives. The castle guns opened, and the
harbour police put out to interfere. The French ship,
however, would have been taken, when unluckily
28 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Alvarez de Bagan, with a Spanish squadron, came
round into the Straits. Resistance was impossible.
The eight English ships were captured and carried
off to Cadiz. The English flag was trailed under
De Bagan's stern. The crews, two hundred and
forty men in ail, were promptly condemned to the
galleys. In defence they could but say that the
Frenchman was an enemy, and a moderate pun-
ishment would have sufficed for a violation of
the harbour rules which the Spaniards them-
selves so little regarded. But the Inquisition
was inexorable, and the men were treated with
such peculiar brutality that after nine months
ninety only of the two hundred and forty were
alive.
Ferocity was answered by ferocity. Listen to
this ! The Cobhams of Cowling Castle were Prot-
estants by descent. Lord Cobham was famous in
the Lollard martyi-ology. Thomas Cobham, one of
the family, had taken to the sea like many of his
friends. While cruising in the Channel he caught
sight of a Spaniard on the way from Antwerp to
Cadiz with forty prisoners on board, consigned, it
might be supposed, to the Inquisition. They were,
of course, Inqmsitiou prisoners ; for other offenders
would have been dealt with on the spot. Cobham
chased her down into the Bay of Biscay, took
her, scuttled her, and rescued the captives. But
that was not enough. The captain and crew he
sewed up in their own mainsail and flung them over-
board. They were washed ashore dead, wrapped
Johi Hawkins and the African Slave Trade 29
in their extraordinary winding-slice t. Cobham was
called to account for this exploit, biit he does not
seem to have been actually punished. In a very
short time he was out and away again at the
old work. There were plenty Avitli him. After
the business at Gibraltar, Philip's subjects were
not safe in English harbours. Jacques le Clerc, a
noted privateer, called Pie de Palo from his wooden
leg, chased a Spaniard into Falmouth, and was
allowed to take her under the guns of Pendennis.
The Governor of the castle said that he could not
interfere, because Le Clerc had a commission from
the Prince of Conde. It was proved that in the
summer of 1563 there were 400 English and
Huguenot rovers in and about the Channel, and
that they had taken 700 prizes between them.
The Queen's own ships followed suit. Captain
Cotton in the Phoenix captured an Antwerp mer-
chantman in Flushing. The harbour-master pro-
tested. Cotton laughed, and sailed away with his
prize. The Regent Margaret wrote in indignation
to Elizabeth. Such insolence, she said, was not
to be endured. She would have Captain Cotton
chastised as an example to all others. Elizabeth
measured the situation more correctly than the
Regent ; she preferred to show Philip that she was
not afraid of him. She preferred to let her subjects
discover for themselves that the terrible Spaniard
before whom the world trembled was but a colossus
stuffed with clouts. Until Philip consented to tie
the hands of the Holy Office she did not mean to
30 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
prevent tliem from taking the law into their own
hands.
Now and then, if occasion required, Elizabeth
herself would do a little privateering on her own
account. In the next story that I have to tell she
appears as a principal, and her great minister, Cecil,
as an accomplice. The Duke of Alva had suc-
ceeded Margaret as Regent of the Netherlands,
and was drowning heresy in its own blood. The
Prince of Orange was making a noble fight ; but all
went ill with him. His troops were defeated, his
brother Louis was killed. He was still struggling,
helped by Elizabeth's money. But the odds were
terrible, and the only hope lay in the discontent of
Alva's soldiers, who had not been paid their wages,
and would not fight Avithout them. Philijj's
finances were not floiu'ishing, but he had borrowed
half a million ducats from a house at Genoa for
Alva's use. The money was to be delivered in
bullion at Antwerp. The Channel privateers heard
that it was coming and were on the look-out for it.
The vessel in which it was sent took refuge in
Plymouth, but found she had run into the enemy's
nest. Nineteen or twenty Huguenot and English
cruisers lay round her with commissions from
Conde to take every Catholic ship they met with.
Elizabeth's special friends thought and said freely
that so rich a prize ought to fall to no one but her
Majesty. Elizabeth thought the same, but for a
more honourable reason. It was of the highest
consequence that the money should not reach the
John Haivkins and the African Slave Trade 31
Duke of Alva at that moment. Even Cecil said so,
and sent the Prince of Orange word that it would
be stopped in some way.
But how could it decently be done? Bishop
Jewel relieved the Queen's mind (if it Avas ever
disturbed) on the moral side of the question. The
bishop held that it would be meritorious in a high
degree to intercept a treasure which was to be used
in the murder of Protestant Christians. But the
how was the problem. To let the privateers take
it openly in Plymouth harbour would, it was felt,
be a scandal. Sir Arthur Champernowne, the Vice-
admiral of the West, saw the difficulty and offered
his services. He had three vessels of his own in
Conde's privateer fleet, under his son Henry. As
vice-admiral he was first in command at Plymouth.
He placed a guard on board the treasure ship, telling
the captain it would be a discredit to the Queen's
Government if harm befell her in English waters.
He then wrote to Cecil.
'If,' he said, ' it shall seem good to your honour
that I with others shall give the attempt for her
Majesty's use which cannot be without blood, I will
not only take it in hand, but also receive the blame
thereof unto myself, to the end so great a commodity
should redound to her Grace, hoping that, after
bitter storms of her displeasure, showed at the first to
colour the fact, I shall find the calm of her favour
in such sort as I am most willing to hazard myself
to serve her Majesty. Great pity it were such a rich
booty should escape her Grace. But surely I am
32 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
of that miucl that anything taken from that
wicked nation is both necessary and profitable to
our commonwealth,'
Very shocking on Sir Arthur's part to write such
a letter : so many good people will think. I hope
they will consider it equally shocking that King
Philip should have burned English sailors at the
stake because they were loyal to the laws of their
own country; that he was stirring war all over
Europe to please the Pope, and thrusting the doc-
trines of the Council of Trent down the throats of
mankind at the sword's point. Spain and England
might be at peace ; Romanism and Protestantism
Avere at deadly war, and war suspends the obliga-
tions of ordinary life. Crimes the most horrible
were held to be virtues in defence of the Catholic
faith. The Catholics could not have the advantage
of such indulgences without the inconveniences.
The Protestant cause throughout Europe was one,
and assailed as the Protestants were with such
envenomed ferocity, they could not afford to be
nicely scrupulous in the means they used to defend
themselves.
Sir Arthur Champernowne was not called on to
sacrifice himself in such peculiar fashion, and a
better expedient was found to secure Alva's money.
The bullion was landed and Avas brought to Loudon
by road on the plea that the seas were unsafe. It
was carried to the Tower, and when it was once
inside the walls it was found to remain the property
of the Genoese until it was delivered at Antwerp.
John Haiuhins and the African Slave Trade 33
The Genoese agent in London was as willing to
lend it to Elizabeth as to Philip, and indeed pre-
ferred the security. Elizabeth calmly said that
she had herself occasion for money, and would ac-
cept their offer. Half of it was sent to the Prince
of Orange ; half was spent on the Queen's navy.
Alva was of course violently angiy. He arrested
every English shij) in the Low Countries. He
arrested every Englishman that he could catch, and
sequestered all English property. Elizabeth re-
taliated in kind. The Spanish and Flemish
property taken in England proved to be worth
double what had been secured by Alva. Philip
coiild not declare war. The Netherlands insurrec-
tion was straining his resources, and with Elizabeth
for an open enemy the whole weight of England
would have been thrown on the side of the Prince
of Orange. Elizabeth herself should have declared
war, people say, instead of condescending to
such tricks. Perhaj)S so ; but also perhaps not.
These insults, steadily maintained and unresented,
shook the faith of mankind, and especially of her
own sailors, in the invincibility of the Spanish
colossus.
I am now to turn to another side of the subject.
The stories which I have told you show the temper
of the time, and the atmosphere which men were
breathing, but it will be instnictive to look more
closely at individual persons, and I will take first
John Hawkins (afterwards Sir John), a peculiarly
characteristic figure.
3
34 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
The Hawkinses of Plymontli were a solid middle-
class Devonsliire family, who for two generations
had taken a leading part in the business of the town.
They still survive in the county — Achius we used
to call them before school pronunciation came in,
and so Philip wrote the name when the famous
John began to trouble his dreams. I have already
spoken of old William Hawkins, John's father,
whom Henry VIII. was so fond of, and who brought
over the Brazilian King. Old William liad now
retired and had left his place and his work to his
son. John Hawkins may have been about thirty at
Elizabeth's accession. He had witnessed the wild
times of Edward VI. and Mary, but, though many
of his friends had taken to the privateering busi-
ness, Hawkins appears to have kept clear of it, and
continued steadily at trade. One of these friends,
and his contemporary, and in fact his near relation,
was Thomas Stukely, afterwards so notorious — and
a word may be said of Stukely's career as a contrast
to that of Hawkins. He was a younger son of a
leading county family, went to London to seek his
fortune, and became a hanger-on of Sir Thomas
Seymour. Doubtless he was connected with Sey-
mour's pirating scheme at Scilly, and took to pirating
as an occupation like other Western gentlemen.
When Elizabeth became Queen, he introduced him-
self at Court and amused her with his conceit. He
meant to be a king, nothing less than a king. He
would go to Florida, found an empire there, and
write to the Queen as his dearest sister. She gave
John Hmokins and the African Slave Trade 35
liini leave to try. He bought a vessel of 400 tons,
got 100 tall soldiers to join liim besides tlie crew,
and sailed from Plymouth in 1563. Once out of
harbour, he announced that the sea was to be his
Florida. He went back to the pirate business,
robbed freely, haunted Irish creeks, and set up an
intimacy with the Ulster hero, Shan O'Neil. Shan
and Stukely became bosom friends. Shan wrote to
Elizabeth to recommend that she should make over
Ireland to Stukely and himseK to manage, and
promised, if she agreed, to make it such an Ireland
as had never been seen, which they probably would.
Elizabeth not consenting, Stukely turned Papist,
transferred his services to the Pope and Philip, and
was preparing a campaign in Ireland under the
Pope's direction, when he was tempted to join
Sebastian of Portugal in the African expedition, and
there got himself killed.
Stukely was a specimen of the foolish sort of the
young Devonshire men ; Hawkins was exactly his
opposite. He stuck to business, avoided politics,
traded with Spanish ports without offending the
Holy Office, and formed intimacies and connections
with the Canary Islands especially, where it was
said ' he grew much in love and favour with the
people.'
At the Canaries he naturally heard much about
the West Indies. He was adventurous. His Cana-
ries friends told him that negroes were great mer-
chandise in the Spanish settlements in Espanola,
and he himself was intimately acquainted with the
36 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Guinea coast, and knew how easily such a cargo
could be obtained.
We know to what the slave trade grew. We have
all learnt to repent of the share which England had
in it, and to abhor everyone whose hands were
stained by contact with so accursed a business. All
that may be taken for granted ; but we must look at
the matter as it would have been represented at the
Canaries to Hawkins himself.
The Carib races whom the Spaniards found in
Cuba and St. Domingo had withered before them as
if struck by a blight. Many died under the lash of
the Spanish overseers; many, perhaps the most,
from the mysterious causes which have made the
presence of civilisation so fatal to the Red Indian,
the Australian, and the Maori. It is Avith men as it
is with animals. The races which consent to be
domesticated prosper and multiply. Those which
cannot live wdthout freedom pine like caged eagles
or disappear like the buffaloes of the prairies.
Anyway, the natives perished out of the islands
of the Caribbean Sea with a rapidity which startled
the conquerors. The famous Bishop Las Casas
pitied and tried to save the remnant that were left
The Spanish settlers required labourers for the
plantations. On the continent of Africa were another
race, savage in their natural state, which would
domesticate like sheep and oxen, and learnt and
imjDroved in the white man's company. The negro
never rose of himself out of barbarism; as his
fathers were, so he remained from age to age ; when
Jolui Hawkins and the African Slave Trade 37
left free, as in Liberia and in Hayti, he reverts to
his original barbarism ; while in subjection to the
white man he showed then, and he has shown since,
high capacities of intellect and character. Such is,
such was the fact. It struck Las Casas that if
negroes could be introduced into the West Indian
islands, the Indians might be left alone ; the negroes
themselves would have a chance to rise out of their
wretchedness, could be made into Christians, and
could be saved at worst from the horrid fate which
awaited many of them in their own country.
The black races varied like other animals : some
were gentle and timid, some were ferocious as
wolves. The strong tyrannised over the weak,
made slaves of their prisoners, occasionally ate
them, and those they did not eat they sacrificed at
what they called their customs — offered them up
and cut their throats at the altars of their idols.
These customs w^ere the most sacred traditions of
the negro race. They were suspended while the
slave trade gave the prisoners a value. They re-
vived when the slave trade was abolished. When
Lord Wolseley a few years back entered Ashantee,
the altars were coated thick with the blood of
hundreds of miserable beings who had been freshly
slaughtered there. Still later similar horrid scenes
were reported from Dahomey. Sir Richard Burton,
who was an old acquaintance of mine, spent two
months with the King of Dahomey, and dilated to
me on the benevolence and enlightenment of that
excellent monarch. I asked why, if the King was
38 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
so benevolent, he did not alter the customs. Bui*ton
looked at me with consternation. ' Alter the cus-
toms ! ' he said. ' Would you have the Archbishop
of Canterbury alter the Liturgy ? ' Las Casas and
those who thought as he did are not to be charged
with infamous inhumanity if they proposed to buy
these poor creatures from their captors, save them
from Mumbo Jumbo, and carry them to countries
where they would be valuable property, and be at
least as well cared for as the mules and horses.
The experiment was tried and seemed to suc-
ceed. The negroes who were rescued from the
customs and were carried to the Spanish islands
proved docile and useful. Portuguese and Spanish
factories were established on the coast of Guinea.
The black chiefs were glad to make money out of
their wretched victims, and readily sold them.
The transport over the Atlantic became a regular
branch of business. Strict laws were made for the
good treatment of the slaves on the plantations.
The trade was carried on under license from the
Government, and an import duty of thirty ducats
per head was charged on every negro that was
landed. I call it an experiment. The full conse-
quences could not be foreseen, and I cannot see
that as an experiment it merits the censures which
in its later developments it eventually came to
deserve. Las Casas, who approved of it, was one
of the most excellent of men. Our own Bishop
Butler could give no decided opinion against negro
slavery as it existed in his time. It is absurd to
John Hawhins and the African Slave Trade 39
say that ordinary mercliants and ship captains
ouglit to have seen the infamy of a practice which
Las Casas advised and Butler could not condemn.
The Spanish and Portuguese Governments claimed,
as I said, the control of the traffic. The Spanish
settlers in the West Indies objected to a restriction
which raised the price and shortened the supply.^
They considered that having established themselves \
in a new country they had a right to a voice in the |
conditions of their occupancy. It was thus that |
the Spaniards in the Canaries represented the 1
matter to John Hawkins. They told him that if
he liked to make the venture with a contraband
cargo from Guinea, their countrymen would give
him an enthusiastic welcome. It is evident from
the story that neither he nor they expected that
serious offence would be taken at Madrid. Hawkins
at this time was entirely friendly with the Span-
iards. It was enough if he could be assured that
the colonists would be glad to deal with him,
I am not crediting liim with the benevolent pur-
poses of Las Casas. I do not suppose Hawkins
thought much of saving black men's souls. He
saw only an opportunity of extending his business
among a people with whom he was already largely
connected. The traffic was established. It had
the sanction of the Church, and no objection had
been raised to it anywhere on the score of morality.
The only question which could have presented itself
to Hawkins was of the right of the Spanish Govern-
ment to prevent foreigners from getting a share of
40 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
a lucrative trade against the wishes of its subjects.
And his friends at the Canaries certainly did not
lead him to expect any real opposition. One
regi'ets that a famous Englishman should have
been connected with the slave trade ; but we have
no right to heap violent censures upon him because
he was no more enlightened than the wisest of his
contemporaries.
Thus, encouraged from Santa Cruz, Hawkins on
his return to England formed an African company
out of the leading citizens of London. Three
vessels were fitted out, Hawkins being commander
and part owner. The size of them is remarkable :
the Solomon, as the largest was called, 120 tons;
the Sioallow, 100 tons ; the Jonas not above 40 tons.
This represents them as inconceivably small. They
carried between them a hundred men, and ample
room had to be provided besides for the blacks.
There may have been a difference in the measure-
ment of tonnage. We ourselves have five stand-
ards : builder's measurement, yacht measurement,
displacement, sail area, and register measurement.
Registered tonnage is far under the others : a yacht
registered 120 tons would be called 200 in a ship-
ping list. However that be, the brigantines and
sloops used by the Elizabethans on all adventurous
expeditions were mere boats compared with what
we should use now on such occasions. The reason
was obvious. Success depended on speed and
sailing power. The art of building big square-
rigged ships w^hich would work to windward had
John Hawkins and the African Slave Trade 41
not been yet discovered, even by Mr. Fletcher of
Rye. The fore-and-aft rig alone would enable a
vessel to tack, as it is called, and this could only be
used with craft of moderate tonnage.
The expedition sailed in October 1562. They
called at the Canaries, where they were warmly
entertained. They went on to Sierra Leone, where
they collected 300 negroes. They avoided the
Government factories, and picked them up as they
could, some by force, some by negotiation with
local chiefs, who were as ready to sell their subjects
as Sancho Panza intended to be when he got his
island. They crossed without misadventure to St.
Domingo, where Hawkins represented that he was
on a voyage of discovery ; that he had been driven
out of his course and wanted food and money. He
said he had certain slaves with him, which he asked
permission to sell. What he had heard at the
Canaries tm'ued out to be exactly true. So far as
the Governor of St. Domingo knew, Spain and Eng-
land were at peace. Privateers had not troubled
the peace of the Caribbean Sea, or dangerous here-
tics menaced the Catholic faith there. Inquisitors
might have been suspicious, but the Inquisition had
not yet been established beyond the Atlantic. The
Queen of England was his sovereign's sister-in-law,
and the Governor saw no reason why he should
construe his general instructions too literally. The
planters were eager to buy, and he did not wish to
be unpopular. He allowed Hawkins to sell two
hundred out of his three hundred negroes, leaving
42 English Seatnen in the Sixteenth Century
the remaining hundred as a deposit should question
be raised about the duty. Evidently the only doubt
in the Governor's mind was whether the Madrid
authorities would charge foreign importers on a
higher scale. The question was new. No stranger
had as yet attempted to trade there.
Everyone was satisfied, except the negroes, who
were not asked their opinion. The profits were
enormous. A ship in the harbour was about to sail
for Cadiz. Hawkins invested most of what he had
made in a cargo of hides, for which, as he under-
stood, there was a demand in Spain, and he sent
them over in her in charge of one of his partners.
The Governor gave him a testimonial for good con-
duct during his stay in the port, and with this and
with his three vessels he returned leisurely to Eng-
land, having, as he imagined, been splendidly suc-
cessful.
He was to be unpleasantly mideceived. A few
days after he had arrived at Plymouth, he met the
man whom he had sent to Cadiz with the hides for-
lorn and empty-handed. The Inquisition, he said,
had seized the cargo and confiscated it. An order
had been sent to St. Domingo to forfeit the reserved
slaves. He himself had escaped for his life, as the
familiars had been after him.
Nothing shows more clearly how little thought
there had been in Hawkins that his voyage would
have given offence in Spain than the astonishment
with which he heard the news. He protested. He
wrote to Philij). Finding entreaties useless, he
John HatvMns ami the African Slave Trade 43
swore vengeance ; but threats were equally ineffect-
ual. Not a hide, not a farthing could he recover.
The Spanish Government, terrified at the intrusion
of English adventui'ers into their western paradise
to endanger the gold fleets, or worse to endanger
the purity of the faith, issued orders more peremj)-
tory than ever to close the ports there against all
foreigners. Philip personally warned Sir Thomas
Chaloner, the English ambassador, that if such
visits were repeated, mischief would come of it.
And Cecil, who disliked all such semi-piratical
enterprises, and Chaloner, who was half a Spaniard
and an old companion in arms of Charles V., en-
treated their mistress to forbid them.
Elizabeth, however, had her own views in such
matters. She liked money. She liked encouraging
the adventm'ous disposition of her subjects, who
were fighting the State's battles at their own risk
and cost. She saw in Philip's anger a confession
that the West Indies was his vulnerable point ; and
that if she wished to frighten him into letting her
alone, and to keep the Inquisition from burning her
sailors, there was the place where Philip would be
more sensitive. Probably, too, she thought that
Hawkins had done nothing for which he could be
justly blamed. He had traded at St. Domingo with
the Governor's consent, and confiscation was sharp
practice.
This was clearly Hawkins's own view of the matter.
He had injured no one. He had offended no pious ears
by parading his Protestantism. He was not Philip's
44 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
subject, and was not to be expected to know the in-
structions given by tlie Spanish Government in the
remote corners of their dominions. If anyone was
to be punished, it was not he but tlie Governor. He
held that he had been robbed, and had a right
to indemnify himself at the King's expense. He
would go out again. He was certain of a cordial
reception from the planters. Between him and
them there was the friendliest understanding. His
quarrel was with Philip, and Philij? only. He
meant to sell a fresh cargo of negroes, and the
Madrid Government should go without their 30 per
cent. duty.
Elizabeth approved. Hawkins had opened the
road to the West Indies. He had shown how easy
slave smuggling was, and how profitable it was;
how it was also possible for the English to establish
friendly relations with the Spanish settlers in the
West Indies, whether Philip liked it or not. An-
other company was formed for a second trial. Eliza-
beth took shares, Lord Pembroke took shares, and
other members of the Council. The Queen lent the
Jesus, a large ship of her own, of 700 tons. Formal
instnictions were given that no wrong was to be
done to the King of Spain, but what wrong might
mean was left to the discretion of the commander.
Where the planters Avere all eager to purchase,
means of traffic would be discovered without collis-
ion with the authorities. This time the expedition
was to be on a larger scale, and a hundred soldiers
were put on board to provide for contingencies.
John Haivhins and the African Slave Trade 45
Thus furnished, Hawkins started on his second
voyage in October 1564. The autumn was chosen,
to avoid the extreme tropical heats. He touched as
before to see his friends at the Canaries. He went
on to the Rio Grande, met with adventures bad and
good, found a chief at war with a neighbouring
tribe, helped to capture a town and take prisoners,
made purchases at a Portuguese factory. In this
way he now secured 400 human cattle, perhaps for a
better fate than they would have met with at home,
and with these he sailed off in the old direction.
Near the equator he fell in with calms ; he was short
of water, and feared to lose some of them ; but, as
the record of the voyage puts it, ' Almighty God
would not suffer His elect to perish,' and sent a
breeze which carried him safe to Dominica. In
that wettest of islands he found water in plenty, and
had then to consider what next he would do. St.
Domingo, he thought, would be no longer safe for
hun ; so he struck across to the Spanish Main to a
place called Burboroata, where he might hope that
nothing would be known about him. In this he was
mistaken. Philip's orders had arrived : no English-
man of any creed or kind was to be allowed to trade
in his West India dominions. The settlers, how-
ever, intended to trade. They required only a dis-
play of force that they might pretend that they were
yielding to compulsion. Hawkins told his old story.
He said that he was out on the service of tke Queen
of England. He had been driven off his course by
bad weather. He was short of supplies and had
46 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
many men on board, who might do the town some
mischief if they were not allowed to land peace-
ably and buy and sell what they wanted. The Gov-
ernor affecting to hesitate, he threw 120 men on
shore, and brought his guns to bear on the castle.
The Governor gave way under protest. Hawkins
was to be permitted to sell half his negroes. He
said that as he had been treated so inhospitably he
would not pay the 30 per cent. The King of Spain
should have 7^, and no more. The settlers had no
objection. The price would be the less, and with this
deduction his business was easily finished off. He
bought no more hides, and Avas paid in solid silver.
From Burboroata he went on to Rio de la Haclia,
where the same scene was repeated. The whole
400 were disposed of, this time with ease and com-
plete success. He had been rapid, and had the
season still before him. Having finished his busi-
ness, he surveyed a large part of the Caribbean Sea,
taking soundings, noting the currents, and making
charts of the coasts and islands. This done, he
turned homewards, following the east shore of North
America as far as Newfoundland. There he gave
his crew a change of diet, with fresh cod from the
Banks, and after eleven months' absence he sailed
into Padstow, having lost but twenty men in the
whole adventure, and bringing back GO per cent, to
the Queen and the other shareholders.
Nothing succeeds like success. Hawkins's praises
were in everyone's mouth, and in London he was
the hero of the hour. Elizabeth received him at
John Haiohins and the African Slave Trade 47
the palace. The Spanish ambassador, De Silva,
met him there at dinner. He talked freely of where
he had been and of Avliat he had done, only keeping
back the gentle violence which he had used. He
regarded this as a mere farce, since there had been
no one hurt on either side. He boasted of having
given the greatest satisfaction to the Spaniards who
had dealt with him. De Silva could but bow, report
to his master, and ask instructions how he was to
proceed.
Philip was frightfully disturbed. He saw in
prospect his western subjects allying themselves
with the English — heresy creeping in among them ;
his gold fleets in danger, all the possibilities with
which Elizabeth had wished to alarm him. He
read and re-read De Silva's letters, and opposite the
name of Achines he wrote startled interjections on
the margin : ' Ojo ! Ojo ! '
The political horizon was just then favourable to
Elizabeth. The Queen of Scots was a prisoner in
Loch Leven ; the Netherlands were in revolt ; the
Huguenots were looking up in France ; and when
Hawkins proposed a third expedition, she thought
that she could safely allow it. She gave him the
use of the Jesus again, with another smaller ship of
hers, the Minion. He had two of his own still fit
for work ; and a fifth, the Judith, was brought in
by his young cousin, Francis Drake, who was now
to make his first appearance on the stage. I shall
tell you by - and - by who and what Drake was.
Enough to say now that he was a relation of Haw-
48 EiKjUsh Seamen in the Sixteenth Centunj
kius, the owner of a small smart sloop or brigautiue,
and ambitious of a share in a stirring business.
The Plymouth seamen were falling into danger-
ous contempt of Philip. While the expedition was
fitting out, a ship of the King's came into Catwater
with more prisoners from Flanders. She was flying
the Castilian flag, contrary to rule, it w^as said, in
English harbours. The treatment of the English
ensign at Gibraltar had not been forgiven, and
Hawkins ordered the Spanish captain to strike his
colours. The captain refused, and Hawkins in-
stantly fired into him. In the confusion the pris-
oners escaped on board the Jesus and were let go.
The captain sent a complaint to London, and Cecil
— who disapproved of Hawkins and all his proceed-
ings— sent down an officer to inquire into what had
happened. Hawkins, confident in Elizabeth's pro-
tection, quietly answered that the Spaniard had
broken the laws of the port, and that it was neces-
sary to assert the Queen's authority.
' Your mariners,' said De Silva to her, ' rob our
subjects on the sea, trade wdiere they are forbidden
to go, and fire upon our ships in your harbours.
Your preachers insult my master from their pulpits,
and wdien we remonstrate we are answered with
menaces. AVe have borne so far with their injuries,
attributing them rather to temper and bad manners
than to deliberate purpose. But, seeing that no
redress can be had, and that the same treatment
of us continues, I must consult my Sovereign's
pleasure. For the last time, I require your Majesty
John Hawldns and the African Slave Trade 49
to punish this outrage at Plymouth and preserve
the peace between the two realms.' ■
No remonstrance could seem more just till the
other side was heard. The other side was that the
Pope and the Catholic powers were undertaking to
force the Protestants of France and Flanders back
under the Papacy with fire and sword. It was no
secret that England's turn was to follow as soon as
Philip's hands were free. Meanwhile he had been
intriguing with the Queen of Scots ; he had been
encouraging Ireland in rebellion ; he had been per-
secuting English merchants and seamen, starving
them to death in the Inquisition dungeons, or burn-
ing; them at the stake. The Smithfield infamies
were fresh in Protestant memories, and who could
tell how soon the horrid work would begin again at
home, if the Catholic powers could have their way ?
If the King of Spain and his Holiness at Rome
would have allowed other nations to think and
make laws for themselves, pirates and privateers
would have disappeared off the ocean. The West
Indies would have been left undisturbed, and Span-
ish, English, French, and Flemings would have
lived peacefully side by side as they do now. But
spiritual tyranny had not yet learned its lesson, and
the ' Beggars of the Sea ' were to be Philip's school-
masters in irregular but effective fashion.
Elizabeth listened politely to what De Silva
said, promised to examine into his complaints, and
allowed Hawkins to sail.
What befell him you will hear in the next lecture.
4
LECTUEE III
SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND
My last lecture left Hawkins preparing to start on
his third and, as it proved, most eventful voyage.
I mentioned that he was joined by a young relation,
of whom I must say a few preliminary words.
Francis Drake was a Devonshire man, like Hawkins
himself and Raleigh and Davis and Gilbert, and
many other famous men of those days. He was
born at Tavistock somewhere about 15-40. He
told Camden that he was of mean extraction. He
meant merely that he was proud of his parents and
made no idle pretensions to noble birth. His father
was a tenant of the Earl of Bedford, and must have
stood well with him, for Francis Russell, the heir
of the earldom, was the boy's godfather. From
him Drake took his Christian name. The Drakes
were early converts to Protestantism. Trouble
rising at Tavistock on the Six Articles Bill, they
removed to Kent, where the father, probably
through Lord Bedford's influence, was appointed a
lay chaplain in Henry VIII. 's fleet at Chatham.
In the next reign, when the Protestants were upper-
most, he was ordained and became vicar of Upnor
on the Medway. Young Francis took early to the
Sir John Hawkins and Philip the Second 51
water, and made acquaintance with a ship-master
trading to the Channel ports, who took him on
board his ship and bred him as a sailor. The boy
distinguished himself, and his patron when he died
left Drake his vessel in his will. For several years
Drake stuck steadily to his coasting work, made
money, and made a solid reputation. His ambition
grew with his success. The seagoing English were
all full of Hawkins and his West Indian exploits.
The Hawkinses and the Drakes were near relations.
Hearing that there was to be another expedition,
and having obtained his cousin's consent, Francis
Drake sold his brig, bought the Judith, a handier
and faster vessel, and with a few stout sailors from
the river went down to Plymouth and joined.
De Silva had sent word to Philip that Hawkins
was again going out, and preparations had been
made to receive him. Suspecting nothing, Hawkins
with his four consorts sailed, as before, in October
1507. The start was ominous. He was caught
and badly knocked about by an equinoctial in the
Bay of Biscay. He lost his boats. The Jesus
strained her timbers and leaked, and he so little
liked the looks of things that he even thought of
turning back and giving up the expedition for the
season. However, the weather mended. They put
themselves to rights at the Canaries, picked up
their spirits, and proceeded. The slave-catching
was managed successfully, though with some
increased difficulty. The cargo with equal success
was disposed of at the Spanish settlements. At
52 Eiiglish Seamen in the Sixteenih Century
one place the planters came off in their boats at
night to buy. At liio de la Haclia, where the most
imperative orders had been sent to forbid his
admittance, Hawkins landed a force as before and
took possession of the town, of course with the
connivance of the settlers. At Carthagena he was
similarly ordered off, and as Carthagena was
strongly fortified he did not venture to meddle with
it. But elsewhere he found ample markets for his
wares. He sold all his blacks. By this and by
other dealings he had collected what is described
as a vast treasure of gold, silver, and jewels. The
hurricane season was approaching, and he made the
best of his way homewards with his spoils, in the
fear of being overtaken by it. Unluckily for him,
he had lingered too long. He had passed the west
point of Cuba and was working up the back of the
island when a hurricane came down on him. The
gale lasted four days. The ships' bottoms were
foul and they could make no way. Spars were lost
and rigging carried away. The Jesus, which had
not been seaworthy all along, leaked worse than
ever and lost her rudder. Hawkins looked for some
port in Florida, but found the coast shallow and
dangerous, and was at last obliged to run for San
Juan de UUoa, at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
San Juan de Ulloa is a few miles only from
Vera Cruz. It was at that time the chief port of
Mexico, through which all the traffic passed between
the colony and the mother-country, and was thus a
place of some consequence. It stands on a small
Sir John Hawkins and Philip the Second 53
bay facing towards the north. Across the mouth
of this bay lies a narrow ridge of sand and shingle,
half a mile long, which acts as a natural break-
water and forms the harbour. This ridge, or island
as it was called, was uninhabited, but it had been
faced on the inner front by a wall. The water was
deej) alongside, and vessels could thus lie in perfect
security, secured by their cables to rings let into
the masonr3\
The prevailing wind was from the north, bringing
in a heavy surf on the back of the island. There
was an opening at both ends, but only one available
for vessels of large draught. In this the channel
was narrow, and a battery at the end of the break-
water would completely command it. The town
stood on the opposite side of the bay.
Into a Spanish port thus constructed Hawkins
entered Avith his battered squadron on September
16, 1568. He could not have felt entirely easy. But
he probably thought that he had no ill-will to fear
from the inhabitants generally, and that the Spanish
authorities would not be strong enough to meddle
with him. His ill star had brought him there at a
time when Alvarez de Ba9an, the same officer w^ho
had destroyed the English ships at Gibraltar, was
daily expected from Spain — sent by Philip, as it
proved, especially to look for him. Hawkins, when
he appeared outside, had been mistaken for the
Spanish admiral, and it was under this impression
that he had been allowed to enter. The error was
quickly discovered on both sides.
5-i EiKjlish Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Though still ignorant that he was himself De
Bagan's particular object, jet De Bagan was the last
of&cer whom in his crijDpled condition he would
have cared to encounter. Several Spanish mer-
chantmen were in the port richly loaded : with these
of course he did not meddle, though, if reinforced,
they might perhaps meddle with him. As his best
resom-ce he despatched a courier on the instant to
Mexico to inform the Viceroy of his arrival, to say
that he had an English squadron with him ; that he
had been driven in by stress of weather and need of
repairs ; that the Queen was an ally of the King of
Spain ; and that, as he understood a Spanish fleet
was likely soon to arrive, he begged the Viceroy to
make arrangements to prevent disputes.
As yet, as I said in the last lecture, there was no
Inquisition in Mexico. It Avas established there
three years later, for the special benefit of the Eng-
lish. But so far there was no ill-will towards the
English — rather the contrary. Hawkins had hurt
no one, and the negro trading had been eminently
popular. The Viceroy might perhaps have connived
at Hawkins's escape, but again by ill-fortune he was
himself under orders of recall, and his successor
was coming out in this particular fleet with De
Ba§an.
Had he been well disposed and free to act it would
still have been too late, for the very next morning,
September 17, De Ba§an was off the harbour mouth
with thirteen heavily armed galleons and frigates.
The smallest of them carried probably 200 men, and
Sir John Haiohins and Philip the Second 55
the odds were now tremendous. Hawkins's vessels
lay ranged along tlie inner bank or wall of the island.
He instantly occupied the island itself and mounted
guns at the point covering the way in. He then sent
a boat off to De Ba§an to say that he was an English-
man, that he was in possession of the port, and must
forbid the entrance of the Spanish fleet tiU he was
assured that there was to be no violence. It was a
strong measiu-e to shut a Spanish admiral out of a
Spanish port in a time of profound peace. Still, the
way in was difficult, and could not be easily forced
if resolutely defended. The northerly wind was ris-
ing ; if it blew into a gale the Spaniards would be on
a lee shore. Under desperate circumstances, des-
perate things will be done. Hawkins in his subse-
quent report thus explains his dilemma : —
'I was in two difficulties. Either I must keep
them out of the port, which with God's grace I could
easily have done, in which case with a northerly
wind rising they would have been wrecked, and I
should have been ansAverable ; or I must risk their
playing false, which on the whole I preferred
to do.'
The northerly gale it appears did not rise, or the
English commander might have preferred the first
alternative. Three days passed in negotiation. De
Bagan and Don Enriquez, the new Viceroy, were
naturally anxious to get into shelter out of a dan-
gerous position, and were equally desirous not to
promise any more than was absolutely necessary.
The final agreement was that De Ba^an and the fleet
56 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
should enter without opposition. Hawkins might
stay till he had repaired his damages, and buy and
sell what he wanted ; and further, as long as they
remained the English were to keep possession of
the island. This article, Hawkins says, was long
resisted, but was consented to at last. It was abso-
lutely necessary, for with the island in their hands,
the Spaniards had only to cut the English cables,
and they would have driven ashore across the
harbour.
The treaty so drawn was formally signed. Host-
ages were given on both sides, aud De Ba§an came
in. The two fleets were moored as far apart from
each other as the size of the port would allow.
Courtesies were exchanged, and for two dajs all
went well. It is likely that the Viceroy and the
admiral did not at first know that it was the very
man whom they had been sent out to sink or cap-
ture who was lying so close to them. When they
did know it they may have looked on him as a
pirate, with whom, as with heretics, there was no
need to keep faith. Any way, the rat was in the
trap, and De Bacan did not mean to let him out.
The Jesus lay furthest in ; the Minion lay beyond
her towards the entrance, moored apparently to a
ring on the quay, but free to move ; and the Judith,
further out again, moored in the same way. Noth-
ing is said of the two small vessels remaining.
De Ba9an made his preparations silently, covered
by the town. He had men in abundance ready to
act where he should direct. On the third day, the
>S'/>' John Hawkins and Pliilip the Second 57
20th of September, at noon, the Minions crew had
gone to dinner, when they saw a large hulk of 900
tons slowly towing up alongside of them. Not
liking such a neighboiu*, they had their cable ready
to slip and began to set their canvas. On a sudden
shots and cries were heard from the town. Parties
of English who were on land were set upon ; many
Avere killed ; the rest were seen flinging themselves
into the water and swimming off to the ships. At
the same instant the guns of the galleons and of the
shore batteries opened fire on the Jesus and her
consorts, and in the smoke and confusion 300 Sj)an-
iards swarmed out of the hulk and sprang on the
Minions decks. The ^Union's men instantly cut
them down or drove them overboard, hoisted sail,
and forced their way out of the harbour, followed by
the Judith. The Jesus was left alone, unable to stir.
She defended herself desperately. In the many
actions which were fought afterwards between the
English and the Spaniards, there was never any
more gallant or more severe. De Bac^an's own ship
was sunk and the vice-admiral's was set on lire.
The Spanish, having an enormous advantage in
numbers, were able to land a force on the island,
seize the English battery there, cut down the gun-
ners, and turn the guns close at hand on the devoted
Jesus. Still she fought on, defeating every attempt
to board, till at length De Bagan sent down fire-
ships on her, and then the end came. All that
Hawkins had made by his voyage, money, bullion,
the ship herself, had to be left to their fate. Haw-
58 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Ccniury
kins himself with the survivors of the crew took to
their boats, dashed through the enemy, who vainly
tried to take them, and struggled out after the
Minion and the Judith. It speaks ill for De Ba^an
that with so large a force at his command, and in
such a position, a single Englishman escaped to tell
the story.
Even when outside Hawkins's situation was still
critical and might well be called desperate. The
Judith was but fifty tons; the Minion not above
a hundred. They were now crowded up with men.
They had little water on board, and there had been
no time to refill their store-chests, or fit themselves
for sea. Happily the weather was moderate. If
the wind had risen, nothing could have saved them.
They anchored two miles off to put themselves in
some sort of order. The Spanish fleet did not vent-
ure to molest further so desperate a foe. On Sat-
urday the 25th they set sail, scarcely knowing
whither to turn. To attempt an ocean voyage as
they were would be certain destruction, yet they
could not trust longer to De Bagan's cowardice or
forbearance. There was supposed to be a shelter of
some kind somewhere on the east side of the Gulf
of Mexico, where it was hoped they might obtain
provisions. They reached the place on October 8,
but found nothing. English sailors have never been
wanting in resolution. They knew that if they all
remained on board every one of them must starve.
A hundred volunteered to land and take their
chance. The rest on short rations might hope to
Sir John Hawkins and Pliilip the Second 59
make their way home. The sacrifice Avas accepted.
The hundi-ecl men were put on shore. They wan-
dered for a few days in the wooils, feeding on roots
and berries, and shot at by the Indians. At length
they reached a Spanish station, where they were
taken and sent as prisoners to Mexico. There was,
as I said, no Holy Office as yet in Mexico. The new
Viceroy, though he had been in the fight at San
Juan de Ulloa, was not implacable. They were
treated at first with humanity ; they were fed,
clothed, taken care of, and then distributed among
the plantations. Some were employed as overseers,
some as mechanics. Others, who understood any
kind of business, were allowed to settle in towns,
make money, and even marry and establish them-
selves. Perhaps Philip heard of it, and was afraid
that so many heretics might introduce the plague.
The quiet time lasted three years ; at the end of
those years the Inquisitors arrived, and then, as if
these poor men had been the special object of that
delightful institution, they were himted up, thrown
into dungeons, examined on their faith, tortured,
some burnt in an aido da fe, some lashed through
the streets of Mexico naked on horseback and
returned to their prisons. Those who did not die
under this pious treatment were passed over to the
Holy Office at Seville, and were condemned to the
galleys.
Here I leave them for the moment. We shall
presently hear of them again in a very singular
connection. The Minion and Judith meanwhile
60 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
pursued their melanclioly way. They parted com-
pany. The Judith, being the better sailer, arrived
first, and reached Plymouth in December, torn and
tattered. Drake rode off post immediately to carry
the bad news to London. The Minions fate was
worse. She made her course through the Bahama
Channel, her crew dying as if struck with a pesti-
lence, till at last there were hardly men enough left
to handle the sails. They fell too far south for
England, and at length had to put into Vigo, Avhere
their probable fate would be a Spanish prison.
Happily they found other English vessels in the
roads there. Fresh hands were put on board, and
fresh provisions. With these supplies Hawkins
reached Mount's Bay a month later than the Judith,
in January 1569.
Drake had told the story, and all England Avas
ringing with it. Englishmen always think their
own countrymen are in the right. The Sjoaniards,
already in evil odour with the sea-going population,
were accused of abominable treachery. The splen-
did fight which Hawkins had made raised him into a
national idol, and though he had suffered financially,
his loss Avas made up in reputation and authority.
Every privateer in the West was eager to serve
under the leadership of the hero of San Juan de
UUoa. He speedily found himself in command of
a large irregular squadron, andcA^en Cecil recognised
his consequence. His chief and constant anxiety
was for the comrades whom he had left behind, and
he talked of a neAV expedition to recover them, or
Sir John Haiohins and Philip the Second 61
revenge them if tliey had been killed; but all
things had to wait. They probably fomid means
of communicating with him, and as long as there
was no Inquisition in Mexico, he may have learnt
that there was no immediate occasion for ac-
tion.
Elizabeth put a brave face on her disappointment.
She knew that she was surrounded with treason, but
she knew also that the boldest course was the
safest. She had taken Alva's money, and was less
than ever inclined to restore it. She had the best of
the bargain in the arrest of the Spanish and English
ships and cargoes. Alva would not encourage Philip
to declare war with England till the Netherlands
were completely reduced, and Philip, with his leaden
foot (pie de plomo), always preferred patience and
intrigue. Time and he and the Pope were three
powers which in the end, he thought, would prove
irresistible, and indeed it seemed, after Hawkins's
return, as if Philip would turn out to be right. The
presence of the Queen of Scots in England had set
in flame the Catholic nobles. The wages of Alva's
troops had been wrung somehow out of the wretched
Provinces, and his supreme ability and inexorable
resolution were steadily grinding down the revolt.
Every port in Holland and Zealand was in Alva's
hands. Elizabeth's throne was undermined by the
Ridolfi conspiracy, the most dangerous which she
had ever had to encounter. The only Protestant
fighting power left on the sea which could be en-
tirely depended on was in the privateer fleet, sail-
62 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
ing, most of them, under a commission from the
Prince of Orange.
This fleet was the strangest phenomenon in
naval history. It was half Dutcli, half English,
with a flavour of Huguenot, and was commanded
by a Flemish noble, Count de la Mark. Its head-
quarters were in the Downs or Dover Eoads, where
it could watch the narrow seas, and seize every
Spanish ship that passed which was not too strong
to be meddled mth. The cargoes taken were
openly sold in Dover market. If the Spanish
ambassador is to be believed in a complaint which
he addressed to Cecil, Spanish gentlemen taken
prisoners were set up to j)^^blic auction there for
the ransom which they would fetch, and were dis-
posed of for one hundred pounds each. If Alva
sent cruisers from Antwerp to burn them out, they
retreated under the guns of Dover Castle. Koving
squadrons of them flew do'WTi to the Spanish coasts,
pillaged churches, carried off church plate, and the
captains drank success to piracy at their banquets
out of chalices. The Spanish merchants at last
estimated the property destroyed at three mill-
ion ducats, and they said that if their flag could
no longer protect them, they must decline to make
fmiher contracts for the supply of the Netherlands
army.
It was life or death to Elizabeth. The Piidolfi
plot, an elaborate and far-reaching couspirac}^ to
give her crown to Mary Stuart and to make away
with heresy, was all but complete. The Pope and
Sir John Haivkins and Philip the Second 63
Philip had approved ; Alva was to invade ; the
Duke of Norfolk was to head au insurrection in the
Eastern Counties. Never had she been in greater
danger. Elizabeth was herself to be murdered.
The intention was known, but the particulars of
the conspiracy had been kept so secret that she had
not evidence enough to take measures to protect
herself. The privateers at Dover were a sort of
protection ; they would at least make Alva's crossing
more difficult ; but the most pressing exigency was
the discovery of the details of the treason. Nothing
was to be gained by concession ; the only salvation
was in daring.
At Antwerp there was a certain Doctor Story,
maintained by Alva there to keep a watch on
English heretics. Story had been a persecutor
under Mary, and had defended heretic burning in
Elizabeth's first Parliament. He had refused the
oath of allegiance, had left the country, and had
taken to treason. Cecil wanted evidence, and this
man he knew could give it. A pretended informer
brought Story word that there was an English
vessel in the Scheldt which he would find worth
examining. Story was tempted on board. The
hatches were closed over him. He was delivered
two days after at the Tower, when his secrets were
squeezed out of him by the rack and he was then
hanged.
Something was learnt, but less still than Cecil
needed to take measures to protect the Queen. And
now once more, and in a new character, we are to
64 English Seamen in ike Sixteenth Century
meet John Hawkins. Three years had passed since
the catastrophe at San Juan de Ulloa. He had
learnt to his sorrow that his poor companions had
fallen into the hands of the H0I3' Office at last ; had
been burnt, lashed, starved in dungeons or worked
in chains in the Seville yards ; and his heart, not
a very tender one, bled at the thoughts of them.
The finest feature in the seamen of those days Avas
their devotion to one another. Hawkins determined
that, one way or other, these old comrades of his
should be rescued. Entreaties were useless ; force
was impossible. There might still be a chance with
cunning. He would risk anything, even the loss of
his soul, to save them.
De Silva had left England. The Spanish am-
bassador was now Don Guerau or Gerald de Espes,
and to him had fallen the task of watching and
directing the conspirac}'. Philip was to give the
signal, the Duke of Norfolk and other Catholic
peers were to rise and proclaim the Queen of Scots.
Success would depend on the extent of the dis-
affection in England itself ; and the ambassador's
business was to welcome and encourage all
symptoms of discontent. Hawkins knew generally
what was going on, and he saw in it an opportunity
of approaching Philip on his weak side. Having
been so much in the Canaries, he probably spoke
Spanish fluently. He called on Don Guerau,
and with audacious coolness represented that
he and many of his friends were dissatisfied with
the Queen's service. He said he had found her
Sir John Haivhins and PlilJip the Second Q^^
faithless and ungrateful, and lie and they would
gladly transfer their allegiance to the King of
Spain, if the King of Spain would receive them.
For himself, he would undertake to bring over the
whole privateer fleet of the West, and in return he
asked for nothing but the release of a few poor
English seamen who were in prison at Seville.
Don Guerau was full of the belief that the whole
nation was ready to rebel. He eagerly swallowed
the bait which Hawkins threw to him. He wrote
to Alva, he wrote to Philip's secretary, Cayas,
expatiating on the importance of securing such an
addition to their party. It was true, he admitted,
that Hawkins had been a pirate, but piracy was a
common fault of the Enghsh, and no wonder when
the Spaniards submitted to being plundered so
meekly ; the man who was offering his services was
bold, resolute, capable, and had great influence
with the English sailors ; he strongly advised that
such a recruit should be encouraged.
Alva would not listen. Philij^, who shuddered at
the very name of Hawkins, was incredulous. Don
Guerau had to tell Sir John that the King at pres-
ent declined his offer, but advised him to go himself
to Madrid, or to send some confidential friend wdth
assurances and explanations.
Another figure now enters on the scene, a George
Fitzwilliam. I do not know who he was, or why
Hawkins chose him for his purpose. The Duke of
Feria was one of Philip's most trusted ministers.
He had married an English lady who had been a
66 Englisli Seamen in the Sixieenth Century
maid of honour to Queen Mary. It is possible that
Fitzwilliam had some acquaintance with her or with
her family. At any rate, he went to the Spanish
Court ; he addressed himself to the Ferias ; he won
their confidence, and by their means was admitted
to an interview with Philip. He represented Haw-
kins as a faithful Catholic who was indignant at the
progress of heresy in England, who was eager to as-
sist in the overthrow of Elizabeth and the elevation
of the Queen of Scots, and was able and willing to
carry along with him the great "Western privateer
fleet, which had become so dreadful to the Spanish
mind. Philip listened and was interested. It was
only natural, he thought, that heretics should be
robbers and pirates. If they could be recovered to
the Church, their bad habits would leave them. The
English navy was the most serious obstacle to the
intended invasion. Still, Hawkins ! The Achines
of his nightmares! It could not be. He asked
Fitzwilliam if his friend was acquainted with the
Queen of Scots or the Duke of Norfolk. Fitzwilliam
was obliged to say that he was not. The credentials
of John Hawkins were his own right hand. He
was making the King a magnificent ofi^er : nothing
less than a squadron of the finest ships in the
world — not perhaps in the best condition, he added,
with cool British impudence, owing to the Queen's
parsimony, but easily to be put in order again if the
King Avould pay the seamen's wages and advance
some money for repairs. The release of a few poor
prisoners was a small price to ask for such a service.
Sir John Hawkins and Pldlip fhe Second G7
The King was still wary, watching the bait like
an old pike, but hesitating to seize it ; but the duke
and duchess were willing to be themselves securities
for Fitzwilliam's faith, and Philip promised at last
that if Hawkins would send him a letter of recom-
mendation from the Queen of Scots herself, he
would then see what could be done. The Ferias
were dangerously enthusiastic. They talked freely
to Fitzwilliam of the Queen of Scots and her pros-
pects. They trusted him with letters and presents
to her which would secure his admittance to her
confidence. Hawkins had sent him over for the
single purpose of cheating Philip into releasing his
comrades from the Inquisition; and he had been
introduced to secrets of high political moment ; like
Saul, the son of Kish, he had gone to seek his father's
asses and he had found a kingdom. Fitzwilliam
hurried home with his letters and his news. Things
were now serious. Hawkins could act no further on
his own responsibility. He consulted Cecil. Cecil
consulted the Queen, and it was agreed that the
practice, as it was called, should be carried further.
It might lead to the discovery of the whole secret.
Very treacherous, think some good people. Well,
there are times when one admires even treachery —
nee lex est justior ulla
Quam necis artifices arte i^erire sua.
King Philip was confessedly preparing to encourage
an English subject in treason to his sovereign. Was
it so wrong to hoist the engineer with his own petard ?
68 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Was it wrong of Hamlet to fiuger the packet of
Rosencrautz and Guildenstcrn and rewrite liis
uncle's despatch? Let us have done with cant in
these matters. Mary Stuart was at Sheffield Castle
in charge of Lord Shrewsbury, and Fitzwilliam
could not see her without an order from the Crown.
Shrewsbury, though loyal to Elizabeth, was notori-
ously well inclined to Mary, and therefore could not
be taken into confidence. • In writing to him Cecil
merely said that friends of Fitzwilliam's were in
prison in Spain ; that if the Queen of Scots would
intercede for them, Philip might be induced to let
them go. He might therefore allow Fitzwilliam to
have a private audience with that Queen.
Thus armed, Fitzwilliam went down to Sheffield.
He was introduced. He began with presenting
Mary with the letters and remembrances from the
Ferias, which at once opened her heart. It was
impossible for her to suspect a friend of the duke
and duchess. She was delighted at receiving a
visitor from the Court of Spain. She was prudent
enough to avoid dangerous confidences, but she said
she was always pleased when she could do a service
to Englishmen, and with all her heart would inter-
cede for the prisoners. She wrote to Philip, she
wrote to the duke and duchess, and gave the letters
to Fitzwilliam to deliver. He took them to London,
called on Don Gerald, and told him of his success.
Don Gerald also wrote to his master, wrote un-
guardedly, and also trusted Fitzwilliam with the
despatch.
Sir John Uawldns and Philip the Second G9
The various packets were taken first to Cecil, and
were next sliowu to tlie Queen. They were then re-
turned to Fitzwilliam, v/ho once more went off with
them to Madrid. If tlie letters produced the ex-
pected effect, Cecil calmly observed that divers com-
modities would ensue. English sailors would be
released from the Inquisition and the galleys. The
enemy's intentions would be discovered. If the
King of Spain could be induced to do as Fitzwilliam
had suggested, and assist in the repairs of the ships
at Plymouth, credit would be obtained for a sum of
money which could be employed to his own detri-
ment. If Alva attempted the projected invasion,
Hawkins might take the ships as if to escort him,
and then do some notable exploit in mid-Channel.
You will observe the downright directness of
Cecil, Hawkins, and the other parties in the matter.
There is no wrapping up their intentions in fine
phrases, no parade of justification. They went
straight to their point. It was very characteristic
of Englishmen in those stern, dangerous times.
They looked facts in the face, and did what fact
required. All really happened exactly as I have
described it : the story is told in letters and docu-
ments of the authenticity of which there is not the
smallest doubt.
We will follow Fitzwilliam. He arrived at the
Spanish Court at the moment when Ridolfi had
brought from Rome the Pope's blessing on the con-
spiracy. The final touches were being added by
the Spanish Council of State. All was hope ; all
70 EngUsh Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
was tbe credulity of enthusiasm! Mary Stuart's
letter satisfied Philip. The prisoners were dis-
missed, each Avith ten dollars in his pocket. An
agreement was formally drawn and signed in the
Escm-ial, in which Philip gave Hawkins a pardon
for his misdemeanours in the West Indies, a patent
for a Spanish peerage, and a letter of credit for
40,000/. to put the privateers in a condition to do
service, and the money was actually paid by Philip's
London agent. Admitted as he now was to full
confidence, Fitzmlliam learnt all particulars of the
great plot. The story reads like a chapter from
Monte Gristo, and yet it is literally true.
It ends with a letter which I will read to you,
from Hawkins to Cecil : —
* My very good Lord, — It may please your Hon-
our to be advertised that Fitzwilliam is returned
from Spain, where his message was acceptably re-
ceived, both by the King himself, the Duke of
Feria, and others of the Privy Council. His
despatch and answer were with great expedition
and great countenance and favour of the King.
The Articles are sent to the Ambassador with
orders also for the money to be paid to me by him,
for the enterprise to proceed with all diligence.
The pretence is that my powers should join with
the Duke of Alva's powers, which ho doth secretly
provide in Flanders, as well as with powers which
will come with the Duke of Medina Celi out of
Spain, and to invade this realm and set up the
Sir John Hawldns and Pldlip the Second 71
Queen of Scots. They have x)i'actised witli ns for
the burning of Her Majesty's ships. Therefore
there should be some good care had of them, but
not as it may appear that anjthing is discovered.
The King has sent a ruby of good price to the
Queen of Scots, with letters also which in my judg-
ment were good to be delivered. The letters be of
no importance, but his message by word is to com-
fort her, and say that he hath now none other care
but to place her in her own. It were good also
that Fitzwilliam may have access to the Queen of
Scots to render thanks for the delivery of the
prisoners who are now at liberty. It will be a very
good colour for your Lordship to confer with him
more largely.
' I have sent your Lordship the copy of my par-
don from the King of Spain, in the order and man-
ner I have it, with my great titles and honours from
the King, from Avhich God deliver me. Their prac-
tices be very mischievous, and they be never idle ;
but God, I hope, will confound them and turn their
devices on their own necks.
' Your Lordship's most faithfully to my power,
* John Hawkins.'
A few more words will conclude this curious epi-
sode. With the clue obtained by Fitzwilliam, and
confessions twisted out of Story and other unwilling
witnesses, the Ridolfi conspiracy was unravelled be-
fore it broke into act. Norfolk lost his head. The
inferior miscreants were hanged. The Queen of
72 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Scots had a narrow escape, and tlie Parliament
accentuated tlie Protestant character of the Church
of England by embodying the Thirty -nine Articles
in a statute. Alva, who distrusted Ridolfi from the
first and disliked encouraging rebellion, refused to
interest himself further in Anglo-Catholic plots.
Elizabeth and Cecil could now breathe more freely,
and read Philip a lesson on the danger of plotting
against the lives of sovereigns.
So long as England and Spain were nominally at
peace, the presence of De la Mark and his privateers
in the Downs was at least indecent. A committee
of merchants at Bruges represented that their losses
by it amounted (as I said) to three million ducats.
Elizabeth, being now in comparative safety, affected
to listen to remonstrances, and orders were sent
down to De la Mark that he must prepare to leave.
It is likely that both the Queen and he understood
each other, and that De la Mark quite well knew
where he was to go, and what he was to do.
Alva now held every fortress in the Low Countries,
whether inland or on the coast. The people were
crushed. The duke's great statue stood in the
square at Antwerp as a symbol of the annihilation
of the ancient liberties of the Provinces. By sea
alone the Prince of Orange still continued the un-
equal struggle ; but if he was to maintain himself as
a sea power anywhere, he required a harbour of his
own in his own country. Dover and the Thames
had served for a time as a base of operations, but it
could not last, and without a footing in Holland
Sir John Haiohins and Philip the Second 73
itself eventual success was impossible. All the Prot-
estant world was interested in his- fate, and De la
Mark, with his miscellaneous gathering of Dutch,
English, and Huguenot rovers, were ready for any
desperate exploit.
The Order was to leave Dover immediately, but it
was not construed strictly. He lingered in the
Downs for six weeks. At length, one morning at
the end of March 1572, a Spanish convoy known to
be richly loaded appeared in the Straits. De la
Mark lifted anchor, darted out on it, seized two of
the largest hulks, rifled them, flung their crews
overboard, and chased the rest up Channel. A day
or two after he suddenly showed himself off Brille,
at the mouth of the Meuse. A boat was sent on
shore with a note to the governor, demanding the
instant surrender of the town to the admiral of the
Prince of Orange. The inhabitants rose in enthu-
siasm ; the garrison was small, and the governor was
obliged to comply. De la Mark took possession.
A few priests and monks attempted resistance, but
were put down without difliculty, and the leaders
killed. The churches were cleared of their idols,
and the mass replaced by the Calvinistic service.
Cannon and stores, furnished from London, were
landed, and Brille Avas made impregnable before
Alva had realised what had haj)pened to him. He
is said to have torn his beard for anger. Flushing
followed suit. In a week or two all the strongest
places on the coast had revolted, and the pirate fleet
had laid the foundation of the great Dutch Kepub-
74 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
lie, which at England's side was to strike out of
Philip's hand the sceptre of the seas, and to save
the Protestant religion.
AVe may think as we please of these Beggars of
the Ocean, these Norse corsairs come to life again
with the flavour of Genevan theology in them ; but
for daring, for ingenuity, for obstinate determination
to be spiritually free or to die for it, the like of the
Protestant privateers of the sixteenth century has
been rarely met with in this Avorld.
England rang with joy when the news came that
Brille was taken. Church bells pealed, and bonfires
blazed. Money poured across in streams. Exiled
families went back to their homes — which were to
be their homes once more — and the Zealanders and
Hollanders, entrenched among their ditches, pre-
pared for an amphibious conflict with the greatest
power then upon the earth.
LECTUEE IV
drake's voyage round the world
I SUPPOSE some persons present have heard the
name of Lope cle Vega, the Spanish poet of Philip
II. 's time. Very few of you probably know more of
him than his name, and yet he ought to have some
interest for us, as he was one of the many enthu-
siastic young Spaniards who sailed in the Great
Armada. He had been disappointed in some love
affair. He was an earnest Catholic. He wanted
distraction, and it is needless to say that he found
distraction enough in the English Channel to put
his love troubles out of his mind. His adventures
brought before him with some vividness the charac-
ter of the nation Avith which his own country was
then in the death-grapple, especially the character
of the great English seaman to whom the Spaniards
universally attributed their defeat. Lope studied
the exploits of Francis Drake from his first appear-
ance to his end, and he celebrated those exjDloits, as
England herseK has never yet thought it worth her
while to do, by making him the hero of an epic
poem. There are heroes and heroes. Lojie de
Vega's epic is called ' The Dragontea.' Drake liim-
self is the dragon, the ancient serpent of the Apoc-
76 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Ceritury
alypse. We English have been contented to allow
Drake a certain qualified praise. We admit that he
was a bold, dexterous sailor, that he did his country
good service at the Invasion. We allow that he
was a famous navigator, and sailed round the world,
which no one else had done before him. But — there
is always a but — of course he was a robber and a
corsair, and the only excuse for him is that he was
no worse than most of his contemporaries. To
Lope de Vega he was a great deal worse. He was
Satan himself, the incarnation of the Genius of
Evil, the arch-enemy of the Church of God.
It is worth while to look more particularly at the
figure of a man who appeared to the Spaniards in
such terrible proportions. I, for my part, believe a
time will come when we shall see better than we see
now what the Reformation was, and what we owe to
it, and these sea-captains of Elizabeth will then
form the subject of a great English national epic as
grand as the ' Odyssey.'
lu my own poor way meanwhile I shall try in
these lectures to draw you a sketch of Drake and
his doings as they appear to mj^self. To-day I can
but give you a part of the rich and varied story,
but if all goes well I hope I may be able to continue
it at a future time.
I have not yet done with Sir John Hawkins. We
shall hear of him again. He became the manager
of Elizabeth's dockyards. He it was who turned
out the ships that fought Philip's fleet in the Chan-
nel in such condition that not a hull leaked, not a
Drake's Voyage Round the World 77
spar was sprung, not a rope parted at an unseason-
able moment, and this at a minimum of cost. He
served himself in the squadron which he had
equipped. He was one of the small group of ad-
mirals who met that Sunday afternoon in the cabin
of the ark Baleigli and sent the fireships down to
stir Medina Sidonia out of his anchorage at Calais.
He was a child of the sea, and at sea he died,
sinking at last into his mother's arms. But of this
hereafter. I must speak now of his still more illus-
trious kinsman, Francis Drake.
I told you the other day generally who Drake
was and where he came from ; how he went to sea
as a boy, found favour with his master, became
early an owner of his own ship, sticking steadily to
trade. You hear nothing of him in connection with
the Channel pirates. It was not till he was five-
and-twenty that he was tempted by Hawkins into
the negro-catching business, and of this one experi-
ment was enough. He never tried it again.
The portraits of him vary very much, as indeed it
is natural that they should, for most of those which
pass for Drake were not meant for Drake at all. It
is the fashion in this country, and a very bad fash-
ion, when we find a remarkable portrait with no
name authoritatively attached to it, to christen it at
random after some eminent man, and there it re-
mains to perplex or mislead.
The best likeness of Drake that I know is an
engraving in Sir William Stirling-Maxwell's collec-
tion of sixteenth-century notabilities, representing
78 EmjUslt Seamen in fJie Sixtecnih Century
him, as a scroll says at the foot of the plate, at the
age of forty -three. The face is roiiucl, the forehead
broad and full, with the short browu hair curling
crisply on either side. The eyebrows are highly
arched, the eyes firm, clear, and open. I cannot
undertake for the colour, but I should judge they
would be dark grey, like an eagle's. The nose is
short and thick, the mouth and chin hid by a heavy
moustache on the upper lip, and a close-clipped
beard well sj^read over chin and cheek. The ex-
pression is good-humoured, but absolutely inflex-
ible, not a weak line to be seen. He Avas of middle
height, powerfully built, perhaps too powerfully for
grace, unless the quilted doublet in which the artist
has dressed him exaggerates his breadth.
I have seen another portrait of him, with pre-
tensions to authenticity, in which he ajjpears with a
slighter figure, eyes dark, full, thoughtful, and
stern, a sailor's cord about his neck with a whistle
attached to it, and a ring into which a thumb is
carelessly thrust, the weight of the arms resting on
it, as if in a characteristic attitude. Evidently
this is a carefully drawn likeness of some remark-
able seaman of the time. I should like to believe it
to be Drake, but I can feel no certainty about it.
We left him returned home in the Judith from
San Juan de Ulloa, a ruined man. He had never
injured the Spaniards. He had gone out Avith his
cousin merely to trade, and he had met with a
hearty reception from the settlers wherever he had
been. A Spanish admiral had treacherously set
Drake's Voyage Bound the World 79
upon liiin and liis kinsmen, destroyed half tlieir
vessels, and robbed tlieni of all that they had.
They had left a hundred of their comrades behind
them, for whose fate they might fear the worst.
Drake thenceforth considered Spanish property as
fair game till he had made up his own losses. He
waited quietly for four years till he had re-estab-
lished himself, and then prepared to try fortune
again in a more daring form.
The ill-luck at San Juan de Ulloa had risen
from loose tongues. There had been too much
talk about it. Too many parties had been con-
cerned. The Spanish Government had notice and
were prepared. Drake determined to act for himself,
have no partners, and keep his own secret. He
found friends to trust him with money without
asking for explanations. The Plymouth sailors
were eager to take their chance with him. His
force was absurdly small : a sloop or brigantine
of a hundred tons, which he called the Dragon
(perhaps, like Lope de Vega, playing on his own
name), and two small pinnaces. With these he
left Plymouth in the fall of the summer of 1572.
He had ascertained that Philip's gold and silver
from the Peruvian mines was landed at Panama,
carried across the isthmus on mules' backs on the
line of M. de Lesseps' canal, and re-shipped at
Nombre de Dios, at the mouth of the Chagre River.
He told no one where he was going. He was no
more communicative than necessary after his re-
turn, and the results, rather than the particulars, of
so English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
his adventure are all that can be certainly known.
Discretion told him to keep his counsel, and he
kept it.
The Drake family published an account of this
voyage in the middle of the nest century, but obvi-
ously mythical, in parts demonstrably false, and
nowhere to bo depended on. It can be made out,
however, that he did go to Nombre de Dios, that he
found his way into the town, and saw stores of
bullion there which he would have liked to carry off
but could not. A romantic story of a fight in the
town I disbelieve, first because his numbers were so
small that to try force would have been absurd, and
next because if there had been really anything like
a battle an alarm would have been raised in the
neighbourhood, and it is evident that no alarm
was given. In the woods were parties of runaway
slaves, who were called Cimarons. It was to these
that Drake addressed himself, and they volunteered
to guide him where he could surprise the treasure
convoy on the way from Panama. His move-
ments were silent and rapid. One interesting inci-
dent is mentioned which is authentic. The Cima-
rons took him through the forest to the watershed
from which the streams flow to both oceans. Noth-
ing could be seen through the jungle of imder-
growth ; but Drake climbed a tall tree, saw from the
top of it the Pacific glittering below him, and made
a vow that one day he would himself sail a ship in
those waters.
For the present he had immediate work on
Dralces Voya<je Round the World 81
baud. His guides kept their word. They led him
to the track from Panama, and he had not long to
wait before the tinkling was heard of the mule bells
as they were coming up the pass. There was no
suspicion of danger, not the faintest. The mule
train had but its ordinary guard, who fled at the
first surprise. The immense booty fell all into
Drake's hands — gold, jewels, silver bars — and got
with much ease, as Prince Hal said at Gadshill.
The silver they buried, as too heavy for transport.
The gold, pearls, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds
they carried down straight to their ship. The
voyage home went prosjierously. The spoils were
shared among the adventurers, and they had no
reason to complain. They were wise enough to
hold their tongues, and Drake was in a condition
to look about him and prepare for bigger enter-
prises.
Eumours got abroad, spite of reticence. Imagi-
nation w^as high in flight just then ; rash amateurs
thought they could make their fortunes in the same
way, and tried it, to their sorrow. A sort of infla-
tion can be traced in English sailors' minds as
their work expanded. Even Hawkins — the clear,
practical Hawkins — was infected. This was not in
Drake's line. He kept to prose and fact. He
studied the globe. He examined all the charts that
he could get. He became known to the Privy
Council and the Queen, and prepared for an enter-
prise which would make his name and frighten
Philip in earnest.
82 .English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
The sliips which the Spaniards used on the
Pacific were usually built on the spot. But Ma-
gellan was known to have gone by the Horn, and
where a Portuguese could go an Englishman could
go. Drake proposed to try. There was a party in
Elizabeth's Council against these adventures, and
in favour of peace with Spain ; but Elizabeth herself
was always for enterprises of pith and moment. She
^ was willing to help, and others of her Coimcil were
willing too, provided their names were not to ap-
pear. The responsibility was to be Drake's own.
Again the vessels in which he was preparing to
tempt fortune seem preposterously small. The
Pelican, or Golden Hinde, which belonged to Drake
himself, was called but 120 tons, at best no larger
than a modern racing yaAvl, though perhaps no
racing yawl ever left White's yard better found for
the work which she had to do. The next, the
Elizabeth, of London, was said to be eighty tons ;
a small pinnace of twelve tons, in which we should
hardly risk a summer cruise round the Land's End,
with two slooj^s or frigates of fifty and thirty tons,
made the rest. The Elizabeth was commanded by
Captain Winter, a Queen's officer, and perhaps a
son of the old admiral.
We may credit Drake with knoAving what he was
about. He and his comrades were carrying their
lives in their hands. If they were taken they would
be inevitably hanged. Their safety depended on
speed of sailing, and specially on the power of
"working fast to windward, which the heavy square-
Drake's Voyage Round the World 83
rigged ships could not do. The crews all told were
160 men and lioys. Drake had his brother John
with him. Among his officers were the chaplain,
Mr. Fletcher, another minister of some kind who
spoke Spanish, and in one of the sloops a mysterious
Mr. Doughty. Who Mr. Doughty was, and why he
was sent out, is uncertain. When an expedition of
consequence was on hand, the Spanish party in the
Cabinet usually attached to it some second in com-
mand whose business was to defeat the object.
When Drake went to Cadiz in after years to singe
King Philip's beard, he had a colleague sent with
him whom he had to lock into his cabin before he
could get to his work. So far as I can make out,
Mr. Doughty had a similar commission. On this
occasion secrecy was impossible. It was generally
known that Drake was going to the Pacific through
Magellan Straits, to act afterwards on his OAvn judg-
ment. The Spanish ambassador, now Don Bernar-
dino de Mendoza, in informing Philip of what was
intended, advised him to send out orders for the in-
stant sinking of every English ship, and the execu-
tion of every English sailor, that appeared on either
side the isthmus in West Indian waters. The or-
ders were despatched, but so impossible it seemed
that an English pirate could reach the Pacific, that
the attention was confined to the Caribbean Sea, and
not a hint of alarm was sent across to the other
side.
On November 15, 1577, the Pelican and her con-
sort sailed out of Plymouth Sound. The elements
84 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Centurij *
frowned on their start. On the second day they
were caught in a winter gale. The Pelican sprung
her mainmast, and they put back to refit and repair.
But Drake defied auguries. Before the middle of
December all was again in order. The weather
mended, and mth a fair wind and smooth water
they made a fast run across the Bay of Biscay and
down the coast to the Caj^e de Yerde Islands.
There, taking up the north-east trades, they struck
across the Atlantic, crossed the line, and made the
South American continent in latitude 33° South.
They passed the mouth of the Plate River, finding
to their astonishment fresh water at the ship's side
in fifty-four fathoms. All seemed so far going Avell,
when one morning Mr. Doughty 's sloop was missing,
and he along with her. Drake, it seemed, had al-
ready reason to distrust Doughty, and guessed the
direction in which he had gone. The Marigold was
sent in pursuit, and he was overtaken and brought
back. To prevent a repetition of such a perform-
ance, Drake took the sloop's stores out of her, burnt
her, distributed the crew through the other vessels,
and took Mr. Doughty under his own charge. On
June 20 they reached Port St. Julian, on the coast
of Patagonia. They had been long on the way, and
the southern winter had come round, and they had
to delay fm-ther to make more particular inquiry into
Doughty's desertion. An ominous and strange spec-
tacle met their eyes as they entered the harbour. In
that utterly desolate spot a skeleton was hanging on
a gallows, the bones picked clean by the vultures.
Drake's Voyage Round the World 85
It was one of Magellan's crew wlio had been exe-
cuted there for mutiny fifty years before. The same
fate was to befall the unhappy Englishman who had
been guilty of the same fault. Without the strictest
discipline it was impossible for the enterprise to suc-
ceed, and Doughty had been guilty of worse than
disobedience. We are told briefly that his conduct
was found tending to contention, and threatenmg
the success of the voyage. Part he was said to have
confessed ; part was proved against him— one knows
not what. A court was formed out of the crew.
He was tried, as near as circmnstances allowed, ac-
cording to English usage. He was found guilty,
and was sentenced to die. He made no comi^laint,
or none of which a record is preserved. He asked
for the Sacrament, which was of course allowed, and
Drake himself communicated with him. They then
kissed each other, and the unlucky wretch took leave
of his comrades, laid his head on the block, and so
ended. His offence can be only guessed ; but the
suspicious curiosity about his fate which was sho^vn
afterwards by Mendoza makes it likely that he
was in Spanish pay. The ambassador cross-ques-
tioned Captain Winter very particularly about him,
and we learn one remarkable fact from Mendoza's
letters not mentioned by any English writer, that
Drake was himself the executioner, choosing to bear
the entire responsibility.
'This done,' writes an eyewitness, 'the general
made divers speeches to the whole company, per-
suading us to unity, obedience, and regard of oiu'
86 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
voyage, and for the better confirmation thereof
willed every man the Sunday following to prepare
liimseK to receive the Commimion as Christian
brothers and friends ought to do, which was done
in very reverend sort ; and so with good content-
ment every man went about his business.'
You must take this last incident into your con-
ception of Drake's character, think of it how you
please.
It was now midwinter, the stormiest season of the
year, and they remained for six weeks in Port St.
Julian. They burnt the twelve-ton pinnace, as too
small for the Avork they had now before them, and
there remained only the Pelican, the Elizabeth, and
the Marigold. In cold wild weather they weighed
at last, and on August 20 made the opening of Ma-
gellan's Straits. The passage is seventy miles long,
tortuous and dangerous. They had no charts. The
ships' boats led, taking soundings as they advanced.
Icy mountains overhung them on either side ; heavy
snow fell below. They brought up occasionally at
an island to rest the men, and let them kill a few
seals and penguins to give them fresh food. Every-
thing they saw was new, wild, and wonderful.
Having to feel their way, they were three weeks
in getting through. They had counted on reaching
the Pacific that the worst of their work was over,
and that they could run north at once into warmer
and calmer latitudes. The peaceful ocean, when
they entered it, proved the stormiest they had ever
sailed on. A fierce westerly gale drove them 600
Drake's Voyage Round the World 87
miles to tlie south-east outside the Horn. It had
been supposed, hitherto, that Tierra del Fuego was
solid land to the South Pole, and that the Straits
were the only communication between the Atlantic
and the Pacific. They now learnt the true shape
iiud character of the Western Continent. In the
latitude of Cape Horn a westerly gale blows for
ever round the globe'; the waves the highest any-
where known. The Marigold went down in the
tremendous encounter. Captain Winter, in the
Elizabeth, made his way back into Magellan's Straits.
There he lay for three weeks, lighting fires nightly
to show Drake where he was, but no Drake appeared.
They had agreed, if separated, to meet on the coast
in the latitude of Valparaiso; but Winter was
chicken-hearted, or else traitorous lilie Doughty, and
sore, we are told, ' against the mariners' will,' when
the three weeks were out, he sailed away for Eng-
hmd, where he reported that all the ships were lost
but the Pelican, and that the Pelican was probably
lost too.
Drake had believed better of Winter, and had
not expected to be so deserted. He had himself
taken refuge among the islands which form the
Cape, waiting for the spring and milder weather.
He used the time in making surveys, and observing
the habits of the native Patagonians, whom he
found a tough race, going naked amidst ice and
snow. The days lengthened, and the sea smoothed
at last. He then sailed for Valparaiso, hoping to
meet AVinter there, as he had arranged. At Val-
88 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
paraiso there was no Winter, but there was in the
port instead a great galleon just come in from Peru.
The galleon's crew took him for a Spaniard, hoisted
their colours, and beat their drums. The Pelican
shot alongside. The English sailors in high spirits
leapt on board. A Plymouth lad who could speak
Spanish knocked down the first man he met with
an ' Abajo, perro ! ' ' Down, you dog, down ! ' No
life was taken ; Drake never hiirt man if he could
help it. The crew crossed themselves, jumped
overboard, and swam ashore. The prize was ex-
amined. Four hundred pounds' weight of gold was
found in her, besides other plunder.
The galleon being disposed of, Drake and his
men pulled ashore to look at the town. The people
had all fled. In the church they found a chalice,
two cruets, and an altar-cloth, which were made
over to the chaplain to improve his Communion
furniture. A few pipes of wine and a Greek pilot
who knew the way to Lima completed the booty.
' Shocking piracy,' you will perhaps say. But
what Drake was doing would have been all right
and good service had war been declared, and the
essence of things does not alter with the form. In
essence there luas war, deadly war, between Philip
and Elizabeth. Even later, wdien the Armada sailed,
there had been no formal declaration. The reality
is the important part of the matter. It was but
stroke for stroke, and the English arm proved the
stronger.
Still hoping to find Winter in advance of him.
Drake's Voyage Round the World 89
Drake went on next to Tarapaca, where silver from
the Andes mines was shipped for Panama. At
Tarapaca there was the same unconsciousness of
danger. The silver bars lay piled on the quay, the
muleteers who had brought them were sleeping
peacefully in the sunshine at their side. The mule-
teers were left to their slumbers. The bars were
lifted into the English boats. A train of mules or
llamas came in at the moment with a second load
as rich as the first. This, too, went into the Pe//-
can's hold. The bullion taken at Tarapaca was
worth near half a million ducats.
Still there were no news of Winter. Drake began
to realize that he was now entirely alone, and had
only himself and his own crew to depend on.
There was nothing to do but to go through with it,
danger adding to the interest. Arica was the next
point visited. Half a hundi'ed blocks of silver were
picked up at Arica. After Arica came Lima, the
chief depot of all, where the grandest haul was
looked for. At Lima, alas ! they were just too late.
Twelve great hulks lay anchored there. The sails
were unbent, the men were ashore. They contained
nothing but some chests of reals and a few bales
of silk and linen. But a thirteenth, called by the
gods Our Ladij of the Conception, called by men
Cacafuego, a name incapable of translation, had
sailed a few days before for the isthmus, with the
whole produce of the Lima mines for the season.
Her ballast was silver, her cargo gold and emeralds
and rubies.
90 Biiglisli Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Drake deliberately cut tlie cables of the sliips in
the roads, that they might drive ashore and be
unable to follow him. The Pelican spread her
wings, every feather of them, and sped away in
pursuit. He would know the Cacafuego, so he
learnt at Lima, by the peculiar cut of her sails.
The first man who caught sight of her was promised
a gold chain for his reward. A sail was seen on
the second day. It was not the chase, but it was
worth stoi^ping for. Eighty pounds' weight of gold
w^as found, and a great gold crucifix, set with
emeralds said to be as large as pigeon's eggs. They
took the kernel. They left the shell. Still on and
on. We learn from the Spanish accounts that the
Viceroy of Lima, as soon as he recovered from his
astonishment, despatched ships in pursuit. They
came up with the last plundered vessel, heard
terrible tales of the rovers' strength, and went back
for a larger force. The Pelican meanwhile went
along upon her course for 800 miles. At length,
when in the latitude of Quito and close under the
shore, the Cacafuegd's peculiar sails were sighted,
and the gold chain was claimed. There she was,
freighted with the fruit of Aladdin's garden, going
lazily along a few miles ahead. Care w^as needed
in approaching her. If she guessed the Pelican's
character, she would run in upon the land and they
would lose her. It was afternoon. The sun was
still above the horizon, and Drake meant to wait
till night, when the breeze would be oflf the shore,
as in the tropics it always is.
Brake's Voyage Bound the World 91
The Pelican sailed two feet to the Cacafuego's
one. Drake filled his empty wine-skins with water
and trailed them astern to stop his way. The
chase supposed that she was followed by some
heavy-loaded trader, and, wishing for company on
a lonely voyage, she slackened sail and waited for
him to come up. At length the smi went down
into the ocean, the rosy light faded from off the
snows of the Andes ; and when both ships had be-
come invisible from the shore, the skins were hauled
in, the night wind rose, and the water began to
ripple under the Pelicans bows. The Cacafuego
was swiftly overtaken, and when within a cable's
length a voice hailed her to put her head into the
wind. The Spanish commander, not understanding
so strange an order, held on his course. A broad-
side brought down his mainyard, and a flight of
arrovN's rattled on his deck. He was himself
wounded. In a few minutes he was a prisoner, and
Our Lady of the Conception and her precious freight
were in the corsair's power. The wreck was cut
away ; the ship was cleared ; a prize crew was put
on board. Both vessels turned their heads to the
sea. At daybreak no land was to be seen, and the
examination of the prize began. The full value
was never acknowledged. The invoice, if there was
one, was destroyed. The accurate figures were
known only to Drake and Queen Elizabeth. A
published schedule acknowledged to twenty tons of
silver bullion, thirteen chests of silver coins, and a
hundredweight of gold, but there were gold nuggets
92 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
besides in indefinite quantity, and ' a great store '
of pearls, emeralds, and diamonds. The Spanish
Government proved a loss of a million and a half
of ducats, excluding what belonged to private
persons. The total capture was immeasurably
greater.
Drake, we are told, was greatly satisfied. He
thought it pnident to stay in the neighbourhood no
longer than necessary. He went north with all
sail set, taking his prize along with him. The
master, San Juan de Anton, was removed on board
the Pelican to have his wound attended to. He
remained as Drake's guest for a week, and sent in
a report of what he observed to the Spanish Govern-
ment. One at least of Drake's party spoke excel-
lent Spanish. This person took San Juan over the
ship. She showed signs, San Juan said, of rough
service, but was still in fine condition, with ample
arms, spare rope, mattocks, carpenters' tools of all
descriptions. There were eightj'-five men on board
all told, fifty of them men-of-war, the rest young
fellows, ship-boys and the like. Drake himself was
treated with gi'eat reverence ; a sentinel stood al-
ways at his cabin door. He dined alone with music.
No mystery was made of the Pelican's exploits.
The chaplain showed San Juan the crucifix set
with emeralds, and asked him if he could seriously
believe that to be God. San Juan asked Drake
how he meant to go home. Drake showed him a
globe with three courses traced on it. There was
the way that he had come, there was the way by
Drake's Voyage Round the World 93
China and the Cape of Good Hope, and there was
a third way which he did not expkiin. San Juan
asked if Spain and England were at war. Drake
said he had a commission from the Queen. His
captures were for her, not for himself. He added
afterwards that the Viceroy of Mexico had robbed
him and his kinsman, and he was making good his
losses.
Then, touching the point of the sore, he said,
' I know the Viceroy will send for thee to inform
himself of my proceedings. Tell him he shall do
well to put no more Englishmen to death, and
to spare those he has in his hands, for if he do
execute them I will hang 2,000 Spaniards and send
him their heads.'
After a week's detention San Juan and his men
were restored to the empty Cacafmgo, and allowed
to go. On their way back they fell in with the two
cruisers sent in pursuit from Lima, reinforced by a
third from Panama. They were now fully armed ;
tliey went in chase, and according to their own
account came up with the Pelican. But, like Lope
de Vega, they seemed to have been terrified at
Drake as a sort of devil. They confessed that they
dared not attack him, and again went back for
more assistance. The Viceroy abused them as
cowards, arrested the officers, despatched others
again with peremptory orders to seize Drake, even
if he was the devil, but by tliat time their ques-
tionable visitor had flown. They found nothing,
perhaps to their relief.
04 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
A despatcli went instantly across the Atlantic to
Philip. One squadron Avas sent off from Cadiz to
watch the Straits of Magellan, and another to patrol
the Caribbean Sea. It was thought that Drake's
third way was no seaway at all, that he meant to
leave the Pelican at Darien, carry his plunder over
the mountains, and build a ship at Honduras to
take him home. His real idea was that he misht
hit off' the passage to the north of which Frobisher
and Davis thought they had foimd the eastern en-
trance. He stood on towards California, picking
up an occasional straggler in the China trade, with
silk, porcelain, gold, and emeralds. Fresh water
was a necessity. He put in at Guatulco for it, and
his proceedings were humorously prompt. The
alcaldes at Guatulco were in session trying a batch
of negroes. An English boat's crew appeared in
court, tied the alcaldes hand and foot, and carried
them off to the Pelican, there to remain as hostages
till the water-casks were filled.
North again he fell in with a galleon carrying out
a new Governor to the Philippines. The Governor
was relieved of his boxes and his jewels, and then,
says one of the party, ' Our General, thinking him-
self in respect of his private injuries received from
the Spaniards, as also their contempt and indignities
offered to our country and Prince, sufficiently satis-
fied and revenged, and supposing her Majesty would
rest contented with this service, began to consider
the best way home.' The first necessity was a com-
plete overhaul of the ship. Before the days of cop-
Drake's Voyage Bound the World 95
per sheathing weeds grew thick under water. Bar-
nacles formed in clusters, stopping the speed, and
sea-worms bored through the planking. Twenty
thousand miles lay between the Pelican and Plym-
outh Sound, and Drake was not a man to run idle
chances. Still holding his north course till he
had left the furthest Spanish settlement far to the
south, he put into Canoas Bay in California, laid the
Pelican ashore, set up forge and workshop, and re-
paired and rerigged her with a month's labour from
stem to stem. With every rope new set up and new
canvas on every yard, he started again on April 16,
1579, and continued up the coast to Oregon. The
air grew cold though it was summer. The men felt
it from having been so long in the tropics, and
dropped out of health. There was still no sign of
a passage. If passage there was, Drake perceived
that it must be of enormous length. Magellan's
Straits, he guessed, would be watched for him, so
he decided on the route by the Cape of Good Hope-
In the Philippine ship he had found a chart of the
Indian Archipelago. With the help of this and his
own skill he hoped to find his way. He went down
again to San Francisco, landed there, found the soil
teeming with gold, made acquaintance with an Ind-
ian king who hated the Spaniards and wished to
become an English subject. But Drake had no
leisui-e to annex new territories. Avoiding the
course from Mexico to the Philippines, he made a
direct course to the Moluccas, and brought up again
at the Island of Celebes. Here the Pelican was a
06 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
second time docked and scraped. The crew liad a
montli's rest among the fireflies and vampires of the
tropical forest. Leaving Celebes, they entered on
the most perilous part of the whole voyage. They
wound their Avay among coral reefs and low islands
scarcely visible above the water-line. In their
chart the only outlet marked into the Indian Ocean
was by the Straits of Malacca. But Drake guessed
rightly that there must be some nearer opening, and
felt his way looking for it along the coast of Java.
Spite of all his care, he was once on the edge of de-
struction. One evening as night was closing in a
grating sound was heard under the Pelicans keel.
In another moment she was hard and fast on a reef.
The breeze was light and the water smooth, or the
world would have heard no more of Francis Drake.
She lay immovable till daybreak. At dawn the
position was seen not to be entirely desperate.
Drake himself showed all the qualities of a great
commander. Cannon were thrown over and cargo
that was not needed. In the afternoon, the wind
changing, the lightened vessel lifted off the rocks
and was saved. The hull was uninjured, thanks to
the Californian repairs. All on board had behaved
well with the one exception of Mr. Fletcher, the
chaplain. Mr. Fletcher, instead of working like a
man, had whined about Divine retribution for the
execution of Doughty.
For the moment Drake passed it over. A few
days after, they passed out through the Straits of
Sunda, where they met the great ocean swell,
Drakes Voyage Round the IVorld 97
Homer's fxeja kv/xu OaXdaai]^, and they knew then
that all Avas well.
There was now time to call Mr, Fletcher to ac-
count. It was no business of the chaplain to dis-
courage and dispirit men in a moment of danger,
and a court was formed to sit upon him. An Eng-
lish captain on his ow^n deck represents the sover-
eign, and is head of Church as Avell as State. Mr.
Fletcher was brought to the forecastle, where Drake,
sitting on a sea-chest with a pair oi pantovflcs in his
hand, excommunicated him, pronoimced him cut off
from the Church of God, given over to the devil for
the chastising of his flesh, and left him chained by
the leg to a ring-bolt to rej^ent of his cowardice.
In the general good-humour punishment could not
be of long duration. The next day the poor chap-
lain had his absolution and returned to his berth
and his duty. The Pelican met with no more ad-
ventures. Sweeping in fine clear weather round
the Cape of Good Hope, she touched once for water
at Sierra Leone, and finally sailed in triumph into
Plymouth Harbour, where she had been long given
up for lost, having traced the first furrow round the
globe. Winter had come home eighteen months be-
fore, but could report nothing. The news of the doings
on the American coast had reached England through
Madrid. The Spanish ambassador had been furious.
It was known that Spanish squadrons had been sent
in search. Complications would arise if Drake
brought his plunder home, and timid politicians
hoped that he was at the bottom of the sea. But
7
98 Engllsli Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
here lie was, actually arrived with a moDarch's ran-
som iu his hold.
f / English sympathy Avith an extraordinary exploit
is always irresistible. Shouts of applause rang
through the country, and Elizabeth, every bit of her
an Englishwoman, felt with her subjects. She sent
for Drake to London, made him tell his story over
and over again, and was never weary of listening to
him. As to injury to Spain, Philip had lighted a
! fresh insurrection in Ireland, which had cost her
dearly in lives and money. For Philip to demand
compensation of England on the score of justice was
a thing to make the gods laugh.
So thought the Queen. So unfortunately did not
think some members of her Council, Lord Burghley
among them, Mendoza was determined that Drake
should be pmiished and the sj^oils disgorged, or
else that he would force Elizabeth upon the world
as the confessed protectress of piracy. Burghley
thought that, as things stood, some satisfaction (or
the form of it) would have to be made.
Elizabeth hated paying back as heartily as Fal-
staff, nor had she the least intention of throwing
to the wolves a gallant Englishman, with whose
achievements the world was ringing. She was
obliged to allow the treasure to be registered by a
responsible official, and an account rendered to
Mendoza ; but for all that she meant to keep her
own share of the spoils. She meant, too, that Drake
and his brave crew should not go unrewarded. Drake
himself should have ten thousand pounds at least.
Drake's Voyage Round the World 9)1
Her action was eminently characteristic of her.
On the score of real jnstice there was no doubt at
all how matters stood between herself and Philip,
who had tried to dethrone and kill her.
The Pelican lay still at Plymouth with the bul-
lion and jewels untouched. She directed that it
should be landed and scheduled. She trusted the
business to Edmund Tremayne, of Sydenham, a
neighbouring magistrate, on whom she could de-
pend. She told him not to be too inquisitive, and
she allowed Drake to go back and arrange the cargo
before the examination was made. Let me now
read you a letter from Tremayne himself to Sir
Francis Walsingham : —
' To give you some understanding how I have pro-
ceeded with Mr. Drake : I have at no time entered
into the account to know more of the value of the
treasure than he made me acquainted with ; and to
say truth I persuaded him to impart to me no more
than need, for so I saw him commanded in her
Majesty's behalf that he should reveal the certainty
to no man living. I have only taken notice of so
much as he has revealed, and the same I have seen
to be weighed, registered, and packed. And to ob-
serve her Majesty's commands for the ten thousand
pounds, we agreed he should take it out of the por-
tion that was landed secretly, and to remove the
same out of the place before my son Henry and I
should come to the weighing and registering of
what was left , and so it was done, and no creature
living by me made privy to it but himself; and
x/
^00 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
myself no privier to it than as you may perceive
by this,
' I see nothing to charge Mr. Drake further than
he is inclined to charge himself, and withal I must
say he is inclined to advance the value to be deliv-
ered to her Majesty, and seeking in general to
recompense all men that have been in the case
dealers with him. As I dare take an oath, he will
rather diminish his own portion than leave any of
them unsatisfied. And for his mariners and follow-
ers I have seen here as eye-witness, and have
heard with my ears, such certain signs of goodwill
as I cannot yet see that any of them will leave his
company. The whole course of his voyage hath
showed him to be of great valour ; but my hap has
been to see some particulars, and namely in this
discharge of his company, as doth assm-e me that
he is a man of great government, and that by the
rules of God and his book, so as proceeding on such
foundation his doings cannot but prosper.'
The result of it all was that deductions were made
from the capture equivalent to the property which
Drake and Hawkins held themselves to have been
treacherously plundered of at San Juan de UUoa,
Avith perhaps other liberal allowances for the cost
of recovery. An account on part of what remained
was then given to Mendoza. It was not returned
to him or to Philip, but was laid up in the Tower till
the final settlement of Philip's and the Queen's
claims on each other — the cost, for one thing, of
the rebellion in Ireland. Commissioners met and
Drahe's Voyage Bound the World 101
argued and sat on ineifectually till the Armada came
and the discussion ended, and tlie talk of restitution
was over. Meanwhile, opinion varied about Drake's
own doings as it has varied since. Elizabeth lis-
tened spellbound to his adventures, sent for him to
London again, and walked with him publicly about
the parks and gardens. She gave him a second
ten thousand pounds. The Pelican was sent round
to Deptford ; a royal banquet was held on board,
Elizabeth attended and Drake was knighted. Men-
doza clamoured for the treasure in the Tower to be
given up to him ; Walsingham wished to give it to
the Prince of Orange ; Leicester and his party in
the Council, who had helped to fit Drake out,
thought it ought to be divided among themselves,
and unless Meudoza lies they offered to share it with
him if he would agree to a private arrangement.
Mendoza says he answered that he would give twice
as much to chastise such a bandit as Drake. Eliza-
beth thought it should be kept as a captured pawn
in the game, and so in fact it remained after the de-
ductions which we have seen had been made.
Drake was lavish of his presents. He presented
the Queen with a diamond cross and a coronet set
with splendid emeralds. He gave Bromley, the
Lord Chancellor, 800 dollars' worth of silver plate,
and as much more to other members of the Council.
The Queen w^ore her coronet on New Year's Day ;
the Chancellor was content to decorate his side-
board at the cost of the Catholic King. Burghley
and Sussex declined the splendid temptation ; they A/
102 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
said they could accept no sucli precious gifts from
a man whose fortune had been made bj phmder.
Burghley lived to see better into Drake's value.
Meanwhile, what now are we, looking back over
our history, to say of these things— the Channel
privateering ; the seizure of Alva's army money ;
the sharp practice of Hawkins with the Queen of
Scots and King Philip ; or this amazing perform-
ance of Sir Francis Drake in a vessel no larger
than a second-rate yacht of a modern noble lord? /
Resolution, daring, professional skill, all his-
torians allow to these men ; but, like Burghley,
they regard what they did as piracy, not much
better, if at all better, than the later exploits of
Morgan and Kidd. So cried the Catholics who
wished Elizabeth's ruin ; so cried 1jO])q de Vega
and King Philip. In milder language the modern
philosopher repeats the unfavourable verdict, re-
joices that he lives in an age when such doings are
impossible, and apologises faintly for the excesses of
an imperfect age. May I remind the philosopher
that we live in an age when other things have also
happily become impossible, and that if he and his
friends were liable when they went abroad for their
summer tours to be snapped by the familiars of the
Inquisition, whipped, burnt alive, or sent to the
galleys, he would perhaps think more leniently of
any measures by which that respectable institution
and its masters might be induced to treat philoso-
pliers with greater consideration ?
Again, remember Dr. Johnson's warning, Beware
Drakes Voyage Bound the World 103
of cant. In that intensely serious century men were
more occupied with the realities than the forms of
things. By encouraging rebellion in England and
Ireland, by burning so many scores of poor English
seamen and merchants in fools' coats at Seville,
the King of Spain had given EHzabeth a hundred
occasions for declaring war against him. Situated
as she was, with so many disaffected Catholic sub-
jects, she could not hegln a war on such a quarrel.
She had to use such resources as she had, and of
these resources the best was a splendid race of men
who were not afraid to do for her at their own risk
what commissioned officers would and might have
justly done had formal war been declared, men who
defeated the national enemy with materials con-
quered from himself, who were devoted enough to
dispense with the personal security which the sove-
reign's commission would have extended to prison-
ers of war, and face the certainty of being hanged
if they were taken. Yes ; no doubt by the letter of
the law of nations Drake and Hawkins were cor-
sairs of the same stuff as Ulysses, as the rovers of
Norway. But the common-sense of Europe saw
through the form to the substance which lay below
it, and the instinct of their countrymen gave them
a place among the fighting heroes of England, from
which I do not think they will be dejoosed by the
eventual verdict of history.
LECTUEE V
PAETIES IN THE STATE
On December 21, 1585, a remarkable scene took
place in the Euglisli House of Commons. The
Prince of Orange, after many attempts had failed,
had been successfully disposed of in the Low Coun-
tries. A fresh conspiracy had just been discovered
for a Catholic insurrection in England, supported
by a foreign invasion ; the object of which was to
dethrone Elizabeth and to give her crown to Mary
Stuart. The Duke of Alva, at the time of the
Kidolfi plot, had pointed out as a desirable pre-
liminary, if the invasion was to succeed, the assas-
sination of the Queen of England. The succession
being undecided, he had calculated that the confu-
sion would paralyse resistance, and the notorious
favour with which Mary Stuart's pretensions were
regarded by a powerful English party would ensure
her an easy victory were Elizabeth ouce removed.
But this was an indispensable condition. It had
become clear at last that so long as Elizabeth was
alive Philip would not v/illingly sanction the land-
ing of a Spanish army on English shores. Thus,
among the more ardent Catholics, especially the
refugees at the Seminary at Eheims, a crown in
Parties in the State 105
heaven was held out to any spiritual knight-errant
who would remove the obstacle. The enterprise
itself was not a difficult one. Elizabeth was aware
of her danger, but she was personally fearless.
She refused to distrust the Catholics. Her house-
hold was full of them. She admitted anyone to
her presence who desired a private interview. Dr.
Parry, a member of Parliament, primed by encour-
agements from the Cardinal of Como and the Vatican,
had undertaken to risk his life to win the glorious
prize. He introduced himself into the palace,
properly provided with arms. He professed to have
information of importance to give. The Queen
received him repeatedly. Once he was alone with
her in the palace garden, and was on the point of
killing her, when he was awed, as he said, by the
likeness to her father. Parry was discovered and
hanged, but Elizabeth refused to take "\\aruiug.
When there were so many aspirants for the honour
of removing Jezebel, and Jezebel was so easy of
approach, it was felt that one would at last suc-
ceed ; and the loyal part of the nation, led by Lord
Burghley, formed themselves into an association to
protect a life so vital to them and apparently so
indifferent to herself.
The subscribers boimd themselves to pursue to
the death all manner of persons who should attempt
or consent to anything to the harm of her Majesty's
person ; never to allow or submit to any pretended
successor by whom or for whom such detestable act
should be attempted or committed ; but to pursue
106 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
sucli persons to deatli and act tlie utmost revenge
upon tliem.
The bond in its first form was a visible creation
of despair. It implied a condition of tilings in
wliicli order would liave ceased to exist. The law-
yers, who, it is curious to observe, were generally
in Mary Stuart's interest, vehemently objected; yet
so passionate was public feeling that it was signed
throughout the kingdom, and Parliament was called
to pass an Act which would secure the same object.
Mary Stuart, at any rate, was not to benefit by the
crimes either of herself or her admirers. It was
provided that if the realm was invaded, or a rebel-
lion instigated by or for any one pretending a title
to the crown after the Queen's death, such pretender
should be disqualified for ever. In the event of the
Queen's assassination the government was to devolve
on a Committee of Peers and Privy Councillors,
who were to examine the particulars of the murder
and execute the perpetrators and their accomplices ;
while, with a significant allusion, all Jesuits and
seminary priests were required to leave the country
instantly, under pain of death.
The House of Commons was heaving with emotion
when the Act was sent up to the Peers. To give
expression to their burning feelings Sir Christopher
Hatton proposed that before they separated they
should join him in a prayer for the Queen's preser-
vation. The 400 members all rose, and knelt on
the floor of the House, repeating Ilatton's words
after him, sentence by sentence.
Parties in the State 107
Jesuits and seminary priests ! Attempts have
been made to justify the conspiracies against
Elizabeth from what is called the persecution of the
innocent enthusiasts who came from Eheims to
preach the Catholic faith to the English people.
Popular writers and speakers dwell on the execu-
tions of Campian and his friends as worse than the
Smithfield burnings, and amidst general admiration
and approval these martjTed saints have been lately
canonised. Their mission, it is said, was purely
religious. Was it so? The chief article in the
religion which they came to teach was the duty of
obedience to the Pope, who had excommunicated
the Queen, had absolved her subjects from their
allegiance, and, by a relaxation of the Bull, had
permitted them to pretend to loyalty ad illud tempus,
till a Catholic army of deliverance should arrive.
A Pope had sent a legate to Ireland, and was at
that moment stirring up a bloody insurrection there.
But what these seminary priests were, and what
their object was, will best appear from an account
of the condition of England, di"aAvn up for the use
of the Pope and Philip, by Father Parsons, who
was himself at the head of the mission. The date
of it is 1585, almost simultaneous with the scene in
Parliament which I have just been describing. The
English refugees, from Cardinal Pole downwards,
were the most active and passionate preachers of
a Catholic crusade against England. They failed,
but they have revenged themselves in history. Pole,
Sanders, Allen, and Parsons have coloured all that
108 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
we siijDpose oiu'selves to know of Henry VIII. and
Elizabeth. "What I am about to read to you does
not diifer essentially from what we have already
heard from these persons ; but it is new, and, being-
intended for practical guidance, is complete in its
way. It comes from the Spanish archives, and is
not therefore open to suspicion. Parsons, as you
know, was a Fellow of Balliol before his conversion ;
Allen was a Fellow of Oriel, and Sanders of New
College. An Oxford Church of England education
is an excellent thing, and beautiful characters have
been formed in the Catholic universities abroad;
but as the elements of dynamite are innocent in
themselves, yet when fused together produce effects
no one would have dreamt of, so Oxford and Rome,
when they have run together, have always generated
a somewhat furious compound.
Parsons describes his statement as a ' brief note
on the present condition of England,' from which
may be inferred the ease and opportuneness of the
holy enterprise. ' England,' he says, ' contains fifty-
two counties, of which forty are well inclined to the
Catholic faith. Heretics in these are few, and are
hated by all ranks. The remaining twelve are in-
fected more or less, but even in these the Catholics
are in the majority. Divide England into three
parts ; two-thirds at least are Catholic at heart,
though many conceal their convictions in fear of the
Queen. English Catholics are of two sorts — one
which makes an open profession regardless of con-
sequences, the other believing at the bottom, but
Parties in the State 109
uuwilliiig to risk life or fortune, and so submittiDg
outwardly to the heretic laws, but as eager as the
Catholic confessors for redemption from slavery.
' The Queen and her party,' he goes on, ' more
fear these secret Catholics than those who wear
their colours openly. The latter they can fine, dis-
arm, and make innocuous. The others, being out-
wardly compliant, cannot be touched, nor can any
precaution be taken against their rising when the
day of divine vengeance shall arrive.
'The counties specially Catholic are the most
warlike, and contain harbours and other conveniences
for the landing of an invading army. The north
towards the Scotch border has been trained in con-
stant fighting. The Scotch nobles on the other
side are Catholic and will lend their help. So will
all Wales.
' The inhabitants of the midland and southern
provinces, where the taint is deepest, are indolent
and cowardly, and do not know what war means.
The towns are more corrupt than the country dis-
tricts. But the strength of England does not lie, as
on the Continent, in towns and cities. The town
population are merchants and craftsmen, rarely or
never nobles or magnates.
' The nobility, who have the real power, reside
with their retinues in castles scattered over the
land. The wealthy yeomen are strong and honest,
all attached to the ancient faith, and may be count-
ed on when an attempt is made for the restoration
of it. The knights and gentry are generally well
110 Emjlisli Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
affected also, and will be well to the front. Many
of their sons are being now educated in our semi-
naries. Some are in exile, but all, whether at home
or abroad, will be active on our side.
'Of the great peers, marquises, earls, viscounts,
and barons, part are with us, part against us. But
the latter sort are new creations, whoin the Queen
has promoted either for heresy or as her personal
lovers, and therefore universally abhorred.
' The premier peer of the old stock is the Earl of
Arundel, sou and heir of the late Duke of Norfolk,
whom she has imprisoned because he tried to es-
cape out of the realm. This earl is entirely Cathohc,
as well as his brothers and kinsmen ; and they have
powerful vassals who are eager to revenge the injury
of their lord. The Earl of Northumberland and his
brothers are Catholics. They too have family
wrongs to repay, their father having been this year
murdered in the Tower, and they have placed them-
selves at my disposal. The Earl of Worcester and
his heir hate heresy, and are devoted to us with all
their dependents. The Earls of Cumberland and
Southampton and Viscount Montague are faithful,
and have a large following. Besides these we have
many of the barons — Dacre, Morley, Yaux, Wind-
sor, Wharton, Lovelace, Stourton, and others be-
sides. The Earl of Westmoreland, with Lord Paget
and Sir Francis Englefield, who reside abroad, have
been incredibly earnest in promoting our enterprise.
With such support, it is impossible that we can fail.
These lords and gentlemen, when they see efficient
Parties in the Slate 111
help coming to them, will certainly rise, aud for tlie
following reasons : —
* 1. Because some of the principals among them
have given me their j^romise,
' 2. Because, on hearing that Pope Pius intended
to excommunicate and depose the Queen sixteen
years ago, many Catholics did rise. They only
failed because no support was sent them, and the
Pope's sentence had not at that time been actually
published. Now, when the Pope has spoken and
help is certain, there is not a doubt how they will
act.
' 3. Because the Catholics are now much more
numerous, and have received daily instruction in
their religion from our priests. There is now no
orthodox Catholic in the Avliole realm who supposes
that he is any longer bound in conscience to obey
the Queen. Books for the occasion have been writ-
ten and published by us, in which we prove that it
is not only lawful for Catholics, but their positive
duty, to fight against the Queen and heresy when
the Pope bids them ; and these books are so greed-
ily read among them that when the time comes they
are certain to take arms.
' 4. The Catholics in these late years have shown
their real feeling in the martyrdoms of priests and
laymen, and in attempts made by several of them
against the person and State of the Queen. Various
Catholics have tried to kill her at the risk of their
own lives, and are still trying.
* 5, We have three hundred priests dispersed
112 Etiglish Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
among the houses of the nobles and honest gentry.
Every day we add to their unmber ; and these
priests will direct the consciences and actions of
the Catholics at the great crisis,
' 6. They have been so harried and so woriied
that they hate the heretics worse than they hate
the Turks.
' Should any of them fear the introduction of a
Spanish army as dangerous to their national liber-
ties, there is an easy way to satisfy their scruples.
Let it be openly declared that the enterprise is
undertaken in the name of the Pope, and there will
be no more hesitation. We have ourselves 2:»repared
a book for their instruction, to be issued at the
right moment. If his Holiness desires to see it we
will have it translated into Latin for his use.
'Before the enterprise is undertaken the sen-
tence of excommunication and deposition ought to
be reissued, with special clauses.
' It must be published in all adjoining Catholic
countries ; all Catholic kings and princes must be
admonished to forbid every description of inter-
course Avith the pretended Queen and her heretic
subjects, and themselves especially to make or ob-
serve no treaties with her, to send no embassies to
her and admit none ; to render no help to her of
any sort or kind.
'Besides those who will be our friends for re-
ligion's sake we shall have others with us — neutrals
or heretics of milder sort, or atheists, with whom
England now abounds, who will join us in the in-
Parties in the State 113
terest of the Queen of Scots. Among them are
the Marquis of Winchester, the iEarls of Shrews-
bury, Derby, Oxford, Rutland, and several other
peers. The Queen of Scots herself will be of in-
tinito assistance to us in securing these. She
knows who are her secret friends. She has been
able so far, and we trust will always be able, to
communicate with them. She will see that they are
ready at the right time. She has often written to
me to say that she hopes that she will be able to
escape when the time comes. In her last letter she
urges me to be vehement with his Holiness in
pushing on the enterprise, and bids him have no
concern for her own safety. She believes that she
can care for herself. If not, she says she Vv^ill lose
her life willingly in a cause so sacred.
' The enemies that we shall have to deal with are
the more determined heretics whom we call Puri-
tans, and certain creatures of the Queen, the Earls
of Leicester and Huntingdon, and a few others.
They will have an advantage in the money in the
Treasury, the public arms and stores, and the army
and navy, but none of them have ever seen a camp.
The leaders have been nuzzled in love-making and
Court pleasures, and they will all fly at the first
shock of war. They have not a man who can com-
mand in the field. In the whole realm there are
but two fortresses which could stand a three days'
siege. The people are enervated by long peace,
and, except a few who have served with the heretics
in Flanders, cannot bear their arms. Of those few
8
Hi English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
some are dead and some liave deserted to the
Prince of Parma, a clear proof of the real disposition
to revolt. There is abundance of food and cattle in
the country, all of which will be at our service and
cannot be kept from us. Everywhere there are safe
and roomy harbours, almost all undefended. An
invading force can be landed with ease, and there
will be no lack of local pilots. Fifteen thou&aud
trained soldiers will be sufficient, aided by the
Catholic English, though, of course, the larger the
force, particularly if it includes cavalry, the quicker
the work will be done and the less the expense.
Practically there will be nothing to overcome save
an uuwarlike and undisciplined mob.
' Sixteen times England has been invaded. Twice
only the native race have repelled the attacking
force. They have been defeated on every other oc-
casion, and with a cause so holy and just as ours we
need not fear to fail. The expenses shall be repaid
to his Holiness and the Catholic King out of the
property of the heretics and the Protestant clergy.
There will be ample in these resources to compen-
sate all who give us their hand. But the work must
be done promptly. Delay will be infinitely danger-
ous. If v.-e put off, as we have done hitherto, the
Catholics will be tired out and reduced in numbers
and strength. The nobles and priests now in exile,
and able to be of such service, will break down in
poverty. The Queen of Scots may be executed or
die a natural death, or something may happen to the
Catholic King or his Holiness. The Queen of Eng-
Parties in the State 115
land may herself die, a heretic Governmeut may be
reconstructed imder a heretic successor, the young
Scotch king or some other, and our case will then be
desperate ; whereas if we can prevent this and save
the Queen of Scots there will be good hope of con-
verting her son and reducing the whole island to the
obedience of the faith. Now is the moment. The
French Governmeut cannot interfere. The Duke of
Guise will help us for the sake of the faith and for
his kinswoman. The Turks are quiet. The Church
was never stronger or more united. Part of Italy is
under the Catholic King; the rest is in league with
his Holiness. The revolt in the Low Countries is
all but crushed. The sea provinces are on the point
of surrendering. If they give up the contest their
harbours will be at our service for the invasion. If
not, the Avay to conquer them is to conquer England.
' I need not urge how much it imports his Holi-
ness to undertake this glorious work. He, su-
premely wise as he is, knows that from this Jezebel
and her supporters come all the perils which dis-
turb the Christian world. He knows that heretical
depravity and all our other miseries can only end
when this woman is chastised. Ileverence for his
Holiness and love for my afflicted country force me
to speak. I submit to his most holy judgment my-
self and my advice.'
The most ardent Catholic apologist will hardly
maintain, in the face of this document, that the Eng-
lish Jesuits and seminary priests were the innocent
116 Emjlisli Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
missionaries of relicfion which the modern enemies
of Elizabeth's Government describe them. Father
Parsons, the writer of it, was himself the leader and
director of the Jesuit invasion, and cannot be sup-
posed to have misrepresented the purpose for which
they had been sent over. The point of special in-
terest is the account which he gives of the state of
parties and generjd feeling in the English people.
Was there that wide disposition to welcome an in-
vading army in so large a majority of the nation ?
The question is supposed to have been triumphantly
answered three years later, when it is asserted that
the difference of creed was forgotten, and Catholics
and Protestants fought side by side for the liber-
ties of England. But, in the first place, the circum-
stances were changed. The Queen of Scots no longer
lived, and the success of the Armada implied a for-
eign sovereign. But, next, the experiment was not
tried. The battle was fought at sea, by a fleet four-
fifths of which was composed of Protestant adventur-
ers, fitted out and manned by those zealous Puritans
Avliose fidelity to the Queen Parsons himself admit-
ted. Lord Howard may have been an Anglo-Catho-
lic ; Roman Catholic he never was ; but he and his
brother were the only loj^alists in the House of
Howard. Arundel and the rest of his kindred were
all that Parsons claimed for them. How the country
levies would have behaved had Parma landed is still
uncertain. It is likely that if the Spanish arm}' had
gained a first success, there might have been some
who would have behaved as Sir William Stanley
Parties in the State 117
did. It is observable that Parsons mentions Leices-
ter and Huntingdon as the only, powerful peers on
whom the Queen could rely, and Leicester, other-
wise the unfittest man in her dominions, she chose
to command her land army.
The Duke of Alva and his master Philip, both of
them distrusted political priests. Political priests,
they said, did not understand the facts of things.
Theological enthusiasm made them credulous of
what they wished. But Father Parsons's estimate
is confirmed in all its parts by the letters of Men-
doza, the Spanish ambassador in London. Men-
doza was himself a soldier, and his first duty was
to learn the real truth. It may be taken as certain
that, with the Queen of Scots still alive to succeed
to the throne, at the time of the scene in the House
of Commons, with which I began this lecture, the
great majority of the country party disliked the Re-
formers, and were looking forward to the accession
of a Catholic sovereign, and as a consequence to a
religious revolution.
It explains the difficulty of Elizabeth's position
and the inconsistency of her political action.
Burghley, Walsingham, Mildmay, Knolles, the elder
Bacon, were believing Protestants, and would have
had her put herself openly at the head of a Protest-
ant European league. They believed that right and
justice were on their side, that their side was God's
cause, as they called it, and that. God would care
for it. Elizabeth had no such complete conviction.
She disliked dogmatism, Protestant as well as
118 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Catholic. She ridiculed Mr. Cecil and his brothers
iu Christ. She thought, like Erasmus, that the ar-
ticles of faith, for which men were so eager to kill
one another, Avere subjects which they knew very
little about, and that every man might think what
he would on such matters without injury to the com-
monwealth. To become ' head of the name ' would
involve open war with the Catholic powers. AVar
meant war taxes, which more than half her subjects
would resent and resist. Religion as she understood
it was a development of law — the law of moral con-
duct. You could not have two laws in one coun-
try, and you could not have two religions ; but the
outward form mattered comparatively little. The
people she ruled over were divided about these
forms. They were mainly fools, and if she let them
each have chaj)els and churches of their own, mole-
hills would become mountains, and the congregations
would go from arguing into fighting. With Parlia-
ment to help her, therefore, she established a Lit-
urgy, in which those who wished to find the Mass
could hear the Mass, while those Avho wanted pre-
destination and justification by faith could find it in
the Articles. Both could meet under a common
roof, and use a common service, if they would only
be reasonable. If they would not be reasonable, the
Catholics might have their own ritual in their own
houses, and would not be interfered with.
This system continued for the first eleven years
of Elizabeth's reign. No Catliolic, she could
proudly say, had ever during that time been mo-
Parties in the State 119
Tested for his belief. There was a small fine for
non-attendance at church, but eyen this was rarely
levied, and by the confession of the Jesuits the
Queen's policy was succeeding too well. Sensible
men began to see that the differences of religion
were not things to quarrel over. Faith was grow-
ing languid. The elder generation, who had lived
through the EdAvard and Mary revolutions, were
satisfied to be left undisturbed ; a new generation
was growing up, with new ideas ; and so the Church
of Rome bestirred itself. Elizabeth was excommu-
nicated. The cycle began of intrigue and conspiracy,
assassination plots, and Jesuit invasions. Punish-
ments had to follow, and in spite of herself Eliza-
beth was driven into what the Catholics could call
religious persecution. Religious it was not, for the
seminary priests were missionaries of treason. But
rehgious it was made to appear. The English
gentleman who wished to remain loyal, without
forfeiting his faith, was taught to see that a sov-
ereign under the Papal curse had no longer a claim
on his allegiance. If he disobeyed the Pope, he
had ceased to be a member of the Church of Christ.
The Papal party grew in coherence, while, opposed
to them as their purpose came in view, the Prot-
estants, who at first had been inclined to Lutheran-
ism, adopted the deeper and sterner creed of Calvin
and Geneva. The memories of the Marian cruelties
revived again. They saw themselves threatened
with a return to stake and fagot. They closed their
ranks and resolved to die rather than submit again
120 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
to Antichrist. They might be inferior in numbers.
A plebiscite in England at that moment would have
sent Burghley and Walsingham to the scaffold.
But the Lord could save by few as well as by many.
Judah had but two tribes out of the twelve, but the
words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the
words of Israel.
One great mistake had been made by Parsons.
He could not estimate what he could not under-
stand. He admitted that the inhabitants of the
towns were mainly heretic— London, Bristol, Ply-
mouth, and the rest — but he despised them as
merchants, craftsmen, mean persons who had no
heart to fight in them. Nothing is more remarkable
in the history of the sixteenth century than the
efi'ect of Calvinism in levelling distinctions of rank
and in steeliner and ennobling" the character of
common men. In Scotland, in the Low Countries,
in Prance, there was the same phenomenon. In
Scotland, the Kirk was the creation of the preachers
and the people, and peasants and workmen dared
to stand in the field against belted knights and
barons, who had trampled on their fathers for
centuries. The artisans of the Low Countries had
for twenty years defied the whole power of Spain,
The Huguenots were not a fifth part of the Prench
nation, yet defeat could never dishearten them.
Again and again they forced crown and nobles to
make terms with them. It was the same in England.
The allegiance to their feudal leaders dissolved into
a higher obligation to the King of kings, whose
Parties in the State 121
elect they believed themselves to be. Election to
them was not a theological phantasm, but an enlist-
ment in the army of God. A little flock they
might be, but they were a dangerous people to deal
with, most of all in the towns of the sea. The sea
was the element of the Reformers. The Popes had
no jurisdiction over the winds and waves. Rochelle
was the citadel of the Huguenots. The English
merchants and mariners had wrongs of their own,
perpetually renewed, which fed the bitterness of
their indignation. Touch where they would in
Spanish ports, the inquisitor's hand was on their
ships' crews, and the crews, unless they denied
their faith, were handed over to the stake or the
galleys. The Calvinists are accused of intolerance.
I fancy that even in these humane and enlightened
days we should not be very tolerant if the King of
Dahomey were to burn every European visitor to
his dominions who would not worship Mumbo
Jumbo. The Duke of Alva was not very merciful
to heretics, but he tried to bridle the zeal of the
Holy Office in burning the English seamen. Even
Philip himself remonstrated. It was to no purpose.
The Holy Office said they would think about it, but
concluded to go on. I am not the least surprised
if the English seamen Avere intolerant. I should be
very much surprised if they had not been. The
Queen could not protect them. They had to pro-
tect themselves as they could, and make Spanish
vessels, when they could catch them, pay for the
iniquities of their rulers.
122 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
With sucli a temper rising on botli sides, Eliza-
beth's policy had but a poor chance. She still
hoped that the better sense of mankind would keep
the doctrinal enthusiasts in order. Elizabeth
wished her subjects would be content to live to-
gether in unity of spirit, if not in unity of theory, in
the bond of peace, not hatred, in righteousness of
life, not in orthodoxy preached by stake and gib-
bet. She was content to wait and persevere. She
refused to declare war. War would tear the world in
jDieces. She knew her danger. She knew that she
was in constant peril of assassination. She knew
that if the Protestants were crushed in Scotland, in
France, and in the Low Countries, her own turn
would follow. To protect insurgents avowedly
would be to justify insurrection against herself. But
what she would not do openly she would do secretly.
What she would not do herseK she let her subjects
do. Thousands of English volunteers fought in
Flanders for the States, and in France for the Hu-
guenots. When the English Treasury was shut to
the entreaties of Coligny or William of Orange the
London citizens untied their purse-strings. Her
friends in Scotland fared ill. They were encour-
aged by promises which were not observed, because
to observe them might bring on war. They com-
mitted themselves for her sake. They fell one after
another — Murray, Morton, Gowrie — into bloody
graves. Others took their places and struggled on.
The Scotch Reformation was saved. Scotland was
not allowed to open its arms to an invading army
Parties in the State 123
to strike England across the Border. But this was
held to be their sufficient recompense. They cared
for their cause as well as for the English Queen, and
they had their reward. If they saved her they
saved their own country. She too did not lie on a
bed of roses. To prevent open war she was expos-
ing her own life to the assassin. At any moment a
pistol-shot or a stab with a dagger might add Eliza-
beth to the list of victims. She knew it, yet she
went on upon her own policy, and faced in her per-
son her own share of the risk. One thing only she
did. If she would not defend her friends and her
subjects as Queen of England, she left them free
to defend themselves. She allowed traitors to be
hanged when they were caught at their work. She
allowed the merchants to fit out their privateer
fleets, to defend at their own cost the shores of
England, and to teach the Spaniards to fear their
vengeance.
But how long was all this to last? How long
were loyal citizens to feel that they were living over
a loaded mine — throughout their own country,
throughout the Continent, at Rome and at Madrid,
at Brussels and at Paris, a legion of conspirators
were driving their shafts under the English com-
monwealth. The Queen might be indifierent to her
own danger, but on the Queen's life hung the peace
of the whole realm. A stroke of a poniard, a toucli
of a trigger, and swords would be flying from their
scabbards in every county ; England would become,
like France, one wild scene of anarchy and civil
124 English Seamen hi the Sixteenth Century
war. No successor had been named. The Queen
refused to hear a successor declared. Mary Stuart's
hand had been in every plot since she crossed the
Border. Twice the House of Commons had peti-
tioned for her execution. Elizabeth would neither
touch her life nor allow her hopes of the crown to
be taken from her. The Bond of Association was
but a remedy of despair, and the Act of Parliament
would have passed for little in the tempest which
would immediately rise. The agony reached a
height when the fatal news came from the Nether-
lands that there at last assassination had done its
work. The Prince of Orange, after many failures,
had been finished, and a libel was found in the Pal-
ace at Westminster exhorting the ladies of the
household to provide a Judith among themselves to
rid the world of the English Holofernes.
One part of Elizabeth's sulijects, at any rate, were
not disposed to sit down in patience under the eter-
nal nightmare. From Spain was to come the army
of deliverance for which the Jesuits were so passion-
ately longing. To the Spaniards the Pope was
l(3oking for the execution of the Bull of Deposition.
Father Parsons had left out of his estimate the
Protestant adventurers of London and Plymouth,
who, besides their creed and their patriotism, had
their private wrongs to revenge. Philip might talk
of peace, and perhaps in weariness might at times
seriously wish for it ; but between the Englishmen
whose life was on the ocean and the Spanish In-
quisition, which had burned so many of them, there
Pmiies in the State 125
was no peace possible. To them, Spain was the
natural enemy. Among the daring spirits who had
sailed with Drake round the globe, Avho had waylaid
the Spanish gold ships, and startled the world with
their exploits, the joy of whose lives had been to
light Spaniards wherever they could meet with them,
there was but one wish — for an honest open war.
The great galleons were to them no objects of ter-
ror. The Spanish naval power seemed to them a
'Colossus stuffed with clouts.' They were Protes-
tants all of them, but their theology was rather prac-
tical than speculative. If Italians and Spaniards
chose to believe in the Mass, it was not any affair
of theirs. Their quarrel was with the insolent pre-
tence of Catholics to force their creed on others
with sword and cannon. The spirit which was
working in them was the genius of freedom. On
their own element they felt that they could be the
spiritual tyrants' masters. But as things were go-
ing, rebellion was likely to break out at home ; their
homesteads might be burning, their country over-
run with the Prince of Parma's army, the Inquisition
at their own doors, and a Catholic sovereign bring-
incf back the fagots of Smithlield.
The Reformation at its origin Avas no introduction
of novel heresies. It was a revolt of the laity of
Europe against the profligacy and avarice of the
clergy. The popes and cardinals pretended to be
the representatives of Heaven. When called to
account for abuse of their powers, they had behaved
precisely as mere corrupt human kings and aristoc-
126 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
racies behave. They had intrigued ; the}' had ex-
communicated ; they had set nation against nation,
sovereigns against their subjects ; they had en-
couraged assassination ; they had made themselves
infamous by horrid massacres, and had taught one
half of foolish Christendom to hate the other. The
hearts of the poor English seamen whose comrades
had been burnt at Seville to make a Spanish holi-
day, thrilled with a sacred determination to end
such scenes. The purpose that was in them broke
into a wild war-music, as the wind harjD swells and
screams under the breath of the storm. I found in
the Record Office an unsigned letter of some inspired
old sea-dog, written in a bold round hand and
addressed to Elizabeth. The ships' companies
which in summer served in Philip's men-of-war
went in winter in thousands to catch cod on the
Banks of Newfoundland. ' Give me five vessels,'
the writer said, ' and I Avill go out and sink them all,
and the galleons shall rot in Cadiz Harbour for
want of hands to sail them. But decide. Madam,
and decide quickly. Time flies, and will not return.
The tvings of man's life are plumed ivith the feathers
of death.'
The Queen did not decide. The five ships were
not sent, and the poor Castilian sailors caught their
cod in peace. But in spite of herself Elizabeth
was driven forward by the tendencies of things.
The death of the Prince of Orange left the States
without a Government. The Prince of Parma was
pressing them hard. Without a leader they were
Parties in the State 127
l(jst. They offered themselves to Elizabeth, to be
incorporated in the English Empir.e. They said
that if she refused they must either submit to Spain
or become provinces of France. The Netherlands,
whether Spanish or French, would be equally dan-
gerous to England. The Netherlands once brought
back under the Pope, England's turn would come
next ; while to accept the proposal meant instant and
desperate war, both with France and Sj)ain too —
for France would never allow England again to gain
a foot on the Continent. Elizabeth knew not what
to do. She would and she would not. She did not
accept ; she did not refuse. It was neither No nor
Yes. Philip, who was as fond of indirect ways as
herself, proposed to quicken her irresolution.
The harvest had failed in Galicia, and the popu-
lation were starving. England grew more corn than
she wanted, and, under a special promise that the
crews should not be molested, a fleet of corn-traders
had gone with cargoes of grain to Corufia, Bilbao,
and Santander. The King of Sj^ain, on hearing
that Elizabeth was treating with the States, issued
a sudden order to seize the vessels, confiscate the
cargoes, and imprison the men. The order was
executed. One English ship only was lucky enough
to escape by the adroitness of her commander.
The Primrose, of London, lay in Bilbao Eoadswith
a captain and fifteen hands. The mayor, on receiv-
ing the order, came on board to look over the ship.
He then went on shore for a sufficient force to carry
out the seizure. After he was gone the captain
12S English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
heard of the fate which was intended for him.
The mayor returned with two boatloads of sokliers,
stepped up the hxdder, touched the captain on the
shoukler, and told him he was a prisoner. The
Englishmen snatched jiike and cutlass, pistol and
battle-axe, killed seven or eight of the Spanish
boarders, threw the rest overboard, and flung stones
on them as they scrambled into their boats. The
mayor, who had fallen into the sea, caught a rope
and was hauled up when the fight was over. The
cable was cut, the sails hoisted, and in a few minutes
the Primrose was under way for England, with the
mayor of Bilbao below the hatches. No second
vessel got away. If Philip had meant to frighten
Elizabeth he could not have taken a worse means of
doing it, for he had exasperated that particular part
of the English population which was least afraid of
him. He had broken faith besides, and had seized
some hundreds of merchants and sailors who had
gone merely to relieve Spanish distress. Elizabeth,
as usual, would not act herself. She sent no ships
from her own navy to demand reparation ; but she
gave the adventurers a free hand. The London
and Plymouth citizens determined to read Spain a
lesson which should make an impression. They
had the worst fears for the fate of the prisoners ;
but if they could not save, they could avenge them.
Sir Francis Drake, who wished for nothing better
than to be at work again, volunteered his services,
and a fleet was collected at Plymouth of twenty-
five sail, every one of them fitted out by private en-
Parties in the State 129
terprise. No finer armament, certainly no better-
equipped armament, ever left the English shores.
The expenses were, of course, enormous. Of sea-
men and soldiers there were between two and three
thousand. Drake's name was worth an army. The
cost was to be recovered out of the expedition
somehow ; the Spaniards were to be made to pay
for it ; but how or when was left to Drake's judg-
ment. This time there was no second in command
sent by the friends of Spain to hang upon his arm.
By universal consent he had the absolute command.
His instructions were merely to inquire at Spanish
ports into the meaning of the arrest. Beyond that
he was left to go where he pleased and do what he
pleased on his own responsibility. The Queen said
frankly that if it proved convenient she intended to
disown him. Drake had no objection to being dis-
owned, so he could teach the Spaniards to be more
careful how they handled Englishmen. "What came
of it will be the subject of the next lecture. Father
Parsons said the Protestant traders of England had
grown effeminate and dared not fight. In the ashes
of their own smoking cities the Spaniards had to
learn that Father Parsons had misread his country-
men. If Drake had been given to heroics he might
have left Virgil's lines inscribed above the broken
arms of Castile at St. Domingo :
En ego victa situ quam veri effeta senectus
Arma inter regum falsa formidine ludit:
Respice ad hsec.
9
LECTUEE VI
THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES
Queen Elizabeth and her brotlier-in-law of Spain
were reluctant cliampions of opposing principles.
In themselves they had no wish to quaiTel, but
each was driven forward by fate and circumstance
— Philip by the genius of the Catholic religion,
Elizabeth by the enthusiasts for freedom and by
the advice of statesmen who saw no safet}'' for her
except in daring. Both wished for peace, and
refused to see that peace was impossible ; but both
were comj^elled to yield to their subjects' eagerness.
Philip had to threaten England with invasion ;
Elizabeth had to show Philip that England had a
long arm, which Spanish wisdom would do well to
fear. It was a singular position. Philip had out-
raged orthodoxy and dared the anger of Rome by
maintaining an ambassador at Elizabeth's Court
after her excommunication. He had laboured for
a reconciliation with a sincerity which his secret
letters make it impossible to doubt. He had con-
descended even to sue for it, in spite of Drake and
the voyage of the Pelican ; yet he had helped the
Po]3e to set Ireland in a flame. He had encouraged
Elizabeth's Catholic subjects in conspiracy after
The Great Expedition to the West Indies 131
conspiracy. He had approved of attempts to dis-
pose of her as lie had disposed of the Prince of
Orange. Elizabeth had rataliated, though with half
a heart, by letting her soldiers volunteer into the
service of the revolted Netherlands, by permitting
English privateers to plunder the Sjoanish colonies,
seize the gold ships, and revenge their own wrongs.
Each, perhaps, had wished to show the other what
an open war would cost them both, and each drew
back when war appeared inevitable.
Events went their way. Holland and Zeeland,
driven to extremity, had petitioned for incorpora-
tion with England ; as a counter-stroke and a warn-
ing, Philip had arrested the English corn ships
and imprisoned the owners and the crews. Her
own fleet was nothing. The safety of the English
shores depended on the spirit of the adventurers,
and she could not afford to check the anger with
which the news was received. To accept the offer
of the States was war, and war she would not have.
Herself, she would not act at all ; but in her usual
way she might let her subjects act for themselves,
and plead, as Philip pleaded in excuse for the In-
quisition, that she could not restrain them. And
thus it was that in September 1585, Sir Francis
Drake found himself with a fleet of twenty-five
privateers and 2,500 men who had volunteered to
serve with him under his own command. He had
no distinct commission. The expedition had been
fitted out as a private undertaking. Neither officers
nor crews had been engaged for the service of the
132 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Crown. They received no wages. In the eye of
the law they were pirates. They were going on
their own. account to read the King of Spain a
necessary lesson and pay their expenses at the
King of Spain's cost. Young Protestant England
had taken fire. The name of Drake set every
Protestant heart burning, and hundreds of gallant
gentlemen had pressed in to join. A grandson of
Burghley had come, and Edward Winter the
Admiral's son, and Erancis Knolles the Queen's
cousin, and Martin Frobisher, and Christopher Car-
lile. Philip Sidney had wished to make one also
in the glory; but Philip Sidney was needed else-
where. The Queen's consent had been won from
her at a bold interval in her shifting moods. The
hot fit might pass away, and Burghley sent Drake a
hint to be off before her humour changed. No word
was said. On the morning of the 14th of September
the signal flag was flying from Drake's maintop
to up anchor and away. Drake, as he admitted
after, ' Avas not the most assured of her Majesty's
perseverance to let them go forward.' Past Ushant
he would be beyond reach of recall. With light
winds and calms they drifted across the bay. They
feU in with a few Erenchmen homeward-bound from
the Banks, and let them pass uninjured. A large
Spanish ship which they met next day, loaded with
excellent fresh salt fish, was counted lawful prize.
The fish was new and good, and was distributed
through the fleet. Standing leisurely on, they
cleared Einisterre and came up with the Isles of
The Great Expedition to the West Indies 133
Bayoua, at the mouth of Vigo Harbour. They
dropped anchor there, and ' it was a great matter
and a royal sight to see them.' The Spanish Gov-
ernor, Don Pedro Beniadero, sent off with some
astonishment to know who and what they were.
Drake answered with a question whether England
and Spain were at war, and if not why the English
merchants had been arrested. Don Pedro could but
say that he knew of no war, and for the merchants
an order had come for their release. For reply
Drake landed part of his force on the islands, and
Don Pedro, not knowing what to make of such
visitors, found it best to propitiate them with cart-
loads of wine and fruit. The weather, which had
been hitherto fine, showed signs of change. The
wind rose, and the sea with it. The anchorage was
exposed, and Drake sent Christopher Carlile with
one of his ships and a few pinnaces, up the harbour
to look out for better shelter. Their appearance
created a panic in the town. The alarmed inhabi-
tants took to their boats, carrying off their property
and their Church plate. Carlile, who had a Cal-
vinistic objection to idolatry, took the liberty of
detaining part of these treasures. From one boat
he took a massive silver cross belonging to the
High Church at Vigo ; from another an image of
Our Lady, which the sailors relieved of her clothes
and were said, when she was stripped, to have
treated with some indignity. Carlile's report being
satisfactory, the whole fleet was brought the next
day up the harbour and moored above the town.
134 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
The news had by this time spread into the country.
The Governor of Galicia came down with all the
force which he could collect in a hurry. Perhaps he
was in time to save Vigo itself. Perhaps Drake,
having other aims in view, did, not care to be de-
tained over a smaller object. The Governor, at any
rate, saw that the English were too strong for him
to meddle with. The best that he could look for was
to persuade them to go away on the easiest terms.
Drake and he met in boats for a parley. Drake
wanted water and fresh provisions. Drake was to
to be allowed to fui-nish himself undisturbed. He
had secured what he most wanted. He had sliown
the King of Spain that he was not invulnerable in
his own home dominion, and he sailed away unmo-
lested. Madrid was in consternation. That the
English could dare insult the first prince in Europe
on the sacred soil of the Peninsula itself seemed like
a dream. The Council of State sat for three days
considering the meaning of it. Drake's name was
already familiar in Spanish ears. It was not con-
ceivable that he had come only to inquire after the
arrested ships and seamen. But what could the
English Queen be about ? Did she not know that
she existed only by the forbearance of Philip ?
Did she know the King of Spain's force ? Did not
she and her people quake ? Little England, it was
said by some of these councillors, was to be swal-
lowed at a mouthful by the King of half the world.
The old Admiral Santa Cruz was less confident
about the swallowing. He observed that England
The Great Expedition to the West Indies 135
bad many teeth, and that instead of boasting of
Spanish greatness it would be better to provide
against what she might do with them. Till now the
corsairs had appeared only in twos and threes.
With such a fleet behind him Drake might go where
he pleased. He might be going to the South Seas
again. He might take Madeira if he liked, or the
Canary Islands. Santa Cruz himself thought he
would make for the West Indies and Panama, and
advised the sending out there instantly every availa-
ble ship that they had.
The gold fleet was Drake's real object. He had
information that it would be on its way io Spain
by the Cape de Verde Islands, and he had learnt
the time when it was to be expected. From Vigo
he sailed for the Canaries, looked in at Palma, with
'intention to have taken our pleasure there,' but
found the landing dangerous and the town itself not
worth the risk. He ran on to the Cape de Verde
Islands. He had measured his time too narrowly.
The gold fleet had arrived and had gone. He had
missed it by twelve hours, * the reason,' as he said
with a sigh, * best known to God.' The chance of
prize money was lost, but the political purpose of
the expedition could still be completed. The Cajoe
de Verde Islands could not sail away, and a begin-
ning could be made with Sant lago. Sant lago
was a thriving, well-populated town, and down in
Drake's book as specially needing notice, some
Plymouth sailors having been recently murdered
there. Christopher Carlile, always handy and
136 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
trustworthy, was put on shore with a thousand men
to attack the place on the undefended side. The
Spanish commander, the bishop, and most of the
people fled, as at Vigo, into the mountains with
their plate and money. Carlile entered Avithout
opposition, and flew St. George's Cross from the
castle as a signal to the fleet. Drake came in,
landed the rest of his force, and took possession.
It happened to be the 17th of November — the anni-
versary of the Queen's accession — and ships and
batteries, dressed out w^ith English flags, celebrated
the occasion with salvoes of cannon. Houses and
magazines were then searched and plundered.
Wine was found in large quantities, rich merchan-
dise for the Indian trade, and other valuables. Of
gold and silver nothing — it had all been removed.
Drake waited for a fortnight, hoping that the Span-
iards would treat for the ransom of the city. When
they made no sign, he marched twelve miles inland
to a village where the Governor and the Bishop were
said to have taken refuge. But the village was
found deserted. The Spaniards had gone to the
mountains, where it Avas useless to follow them, and
were too proud to bargain with a pirate chief. Sant
lago was a beautifully built city, and Drake would
perhaps have spared it ; but a ship-boy who had
strayed was found murdered and barbarously mu-
tilated. The order was given to bum. Houses,
magazines, churches, public buildings were turned
to ashes, and the work being finished Drake went
on, as Santa Cruz expected, for the Spanish West
The Great Expedition to the West Indies 137
Indies. The Spaniards were magnificent in all that
they did and touched. They built their cities in
their new possessions on the most splendid models
of the Old World. St. Domingo and Carthagena
had their castles and cathedrals, palaces, squares,
and streets, grand and solid as those at Cadiz and
Seville, and raised as enduring monuments of the
power and greatness of the Castilian monarchs. To
these Drake meant to pay a visit. Beyond them
was the Isthmus, where he had made his first fame
and fortune, with Panama behind, the depot of the
Indian treasure. So far all had gone well with him.
He had taken what he wanted out of Yigo ; he had
destroyed Sant lago and had not lost a man. Un-
fortunately he had now a worse enemy to deal with
than Spanish galleons or Spanish garrisons. He
was in the heat of the tropics. Yellow fever broke
out and spread through the fleet. Of those who
caught the infection few recovered, or recovered
only to be the wrecks of themselves. It was swift
in its work. In a few days more than two hundred
had died. But the north-east trade blew merrily.
The fleet sped on before it. In eighteen days they
were in the roads at Dominica, the island of brooks
and rivers and fruit. Limes and lemons and oranges
were not as yet. But there were leaves and roots of
the natural growth, known to the Caribs as antidotes
to the fever, and the Caribs, when they learnt that
the English were the Spaniards' enemies, brought
them this precious remedy and taught them the
use of it. The ships were washed and ventilated.
138 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
and the water casks refilled. The infection seemed
to have gone as suddenly as it appeared, and again
all was well.
Christmas was kept at St. Kitts, which was then
uninhabited. A council of war was held to consider
what should be done next. St. Domingo lay near-
est to them. It was the finest of all the Spanish
colonial cities. It was the capital of the West
Indian Government, the gi-eat centre of West
Indian commerce. In the cathedral, before the
high altar, lay Columbus and his brother Diego. In
natural wealth no island in the world outrivals Es-
pinola, w^here the city stood. A vast population
had collected there, far away from harm, protected
as they supposed, by the majesty of the mother
country, the native inhabitants almost exterminat-
ed, themselves undreaming that any enemy could
approach them from the ocean, and therefore neg-
ligent of defence and enjoying themselves in easy
security.
Drake was to give them a new experience and a
lesson for the future. On their way across from
St. Kitts the adventurers overhauled a small vessel
bound to the same port as they were. From the
crew of this vessel they learnt that the harbour at
St. Domingo was formed, like so many others in the
West Indies, by a long sandspit, acting as a natural
breakwater. The entrance was a narrow inlet at
the extremity of the spit, and batteries had been
mounted there to cover it. To land on the outer
side of the sandbank was made impossible by the
The Great Expedition to the WeM Indies 139
surf. There was one sheltered point only where
boats could go on shore, but this was ten miles dis-
tant from the town.
Ten miles Avas but a morning's march. Drake
went in himself in a pinnace, surveyed the landing-
place, and satisfied himself of its safety. The plan
of attack at Sant lago was to be exactly repeated.
On New Year's Eve Christopher Carlile was again
landed with half the force in the fleet. Drake
remained with the rest, and prepared to force the
entrance of the harbour if Carlile succeeded. Their
coming had been seen from the city. The alarm
had been given, and the women and children, the
money in the treasury, the consecrated plate, mov-
able property of all kinds, were sent off inland as
a precaution. Of regular troops there seem to have
been none, but in so populous a city there was
no difficulty in collecting a respectable force to
defend it. The hidalgos formed a body of cavalry.
The people generally were unused to arms, but they
were Spaniards and brave men, and did not mean
to leave their homes without a fight for it. Carlile
lay still for the night. He marched at eight in the
morning on New Year's Day, advanced leism-ely,
and at noon found himself in front of the wall. So
far he had met no resistance, but a considerable
body of horse — gentlemen and their servants chiefly
— charged down on him out of the bush and out of
the town. He formed into a square to receive
them. They came on gallantly, but were received
with pike and shot, and after a few attempts gave
140 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
up and retired. Two gates were in front of Carlile,
with a road to eacli leading through a jungle. At
each gate were cannon, and the jungle was lined
with musketeers. He divided his men and attacked
both together. One party he led in person. The
cannon opened on him, and an Englishman next
to him was killed. He dashed on, leaving the
Spaniards no time to reload, carried the gate at a
rush, and cut his way through the streets to the
great square. The second division had been
equally successful, and St. Domingo was theirs ex-
cept the castle, which was still untaken. Carlile's
numbers were too small to occupy a large city. He
threw up barricades and fortified himself in the
square for the night. Drake brought the fleet in at
daybreak, and landed guns, when the castle sur-
rendered. A messenger— a negro boy — was sent
to the governor to learn the terms which he was
prepared to offer to save the city from pillage. The
Spanish officers were smarting with the disgrace.
One of them struck the lad through the body with
a lance. He ran back bleeding to the English lines
and died at Drake's feet. Sir Francis was a danger-
ous man to provoke. Such doings had to be prompt-
ly stopped. In the part of the town which he occu-
pied was a monastery with a number of friars in it.
The religious orders, he well knew, were the chief
instigators of the policy which was maddening the
world. He sent two of these friars with the pro-
vost-marshal to the spot where the boy had been
struck, promptly hanged them, and then despatched
The Great Expedition to the West Indies 141
another to tell the governor that he would hang
two more every day at the same place till the officer
was punished. The Spaniards had long learnt to
call Drake the Draque, the serpent, the devil. They
feared that the devil might be a man of his word.
The offender was surrendered. It was not enough.
Drake insisted that they should do justice on him
themselves. The governor found it prudent to com-
ply, and the too hasty officer was executed.
The next point was the ransom of the city. The
Spaniards still hesitating, 200 men were told off
each morning to burn, while the rest searched the
private houses, and palaces, and magazines. Gov-
ernment House was the grandest building in the
New World. It was approached by broad flights
of marble stairs. Great doors opened on a spacious
gallery leading into a great hall, and above the por-
tico hung the arms of Spain — a globe representing
the world, a horse leaping upon it, and in the horse's
mouth a scroll with the haughty motto, ' Non sufficit
orbis.' Palace and scutcheon were levelled into
dust by axe and gunpowder, and each day for a
month the destruction went on, Drake's demands
steadily growing and the unhappy governor vainly
pleading impossibility.
Vandalism, atrocity unheard of among civilised
nations, dishonour to the Protestant cause, Drake
deserving to swing at his own yardarm ; so indig-
nant Liberalism shrieked, and has not ceased shriek-
ing. Let it be remembered that for fifteen years
the Spaniards had been burning English seamen
142 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
wlienever they could catcli them, plotting to kill the
Queen and reduce England itself into vassaldom to
the Pope. The English nation, the loyal part of it,
were replying to the wild pretension by the hands
of their own admiral. If Philip chose to counte-
nance assassins, if t]ie Holy Office chose to burn
English sailors as heretics, those heretics had a
right to make Spain understand that such a game
was dangerous, that, as Santa Cruz had said, they
had teeth and could use them.
It was found in the end that the governor's plea
of impossibility was more real than was at first be-
lieved. The gold and silver had been really carried
off. All else that was valuable had been burnt or
taken by the English. The destruction of a city so
solidly built was tedious and difficult. Nearly half
of it was blown up. The cathedral was spared,
perhaps as the resting-place of Columbus. Drake
had other work before him. After staying a month
in undisturbed occupation he agreed to accept
25,000 ducats as a ransom for what was left and
sailed away.
It was now February. The hot season was
coming on, when the climate would be dangerous.
There was still much to do and the time was run-
ning short. Panama had to be left for another op-
portunity. Drake's object was to deal blows which
would shake the faith of Europe in the Spanish
power. Carthagena stood next to St. Domingo
among the Spanish West Indian fortresses. The
situation was strong. In 1740 Carthagena was able
The Great Expedition to the West Indies 143
to beat off Vernon and a great English fleet. But
Drake's crews were in high health and spirits, and
he determined to see what he could do with it.
Surprise was no longer to be hoped for. The alarm
had spread over the Caribbean Sea. But in their
present humour they were ready to go anywhere
and dare anything, and to Carthagena they went.
Drake's name carried terror before it. Every
non-combatant — old men, women and children —
had been cleared out before he arrived, but the
rest prepared for a smart defence. The harbour at
Carthagena was formed, as at St. Domingo and
Port Eoyal, by a sandspit. The spit was long,
narrow, in places not fifty yards wide, and covered
with prickly bush, and along this, as before, it was
necessary to advance to reach the city. A trench
had been cut across at the neck, and a stiff barri-
cade built and armed Avith heavy guns ; behind
this were several hundred musketeers, while the
bush was full of Indians with poisoned arrows.
Pointed stakes — poisoned also — had been driven
into the ground along the approaches, on which to
step was death. Two large galleys, full of men,
patrolled inside the bank on the harbour edge, and
with these preparations the inhabitants hoped to
keep the dreadful Drake from reaching them.
Carlile, as before, was to do the land fighting. He
was set on shore three miles down the spit. The
tide is slight in those seas, but he waited till it was
out, and advanced along the outer shore at low-
water mark. He was thus covered by the bank
144 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
from the harbour galleys, and their shots passed
over him. Two squadrons of horse came out, but
could do nothing to him on the broken ground.
Tlie English pushed on to the wall, scarcely losing
a man. They charged, scaled the parapets, and
drove the Spanish infantry back at point of pike.
Carlile killed their commander with his own hand.
The rest fled after a short struggle, and Drake was
master of Carthagena. Here for six weeks he re-
mained. The Spaniards withdrew out of the city,
and there were again parleys over the ransom
money. Courtesies were exchanged among the
officers. Drake entertained the governor and his
suite. The governor returned the hospitality and
received Drake and the English captains. Drake
demanded 100,000 ducats. The Spaniards offered
30,000, and protested that they could pay no more.
The dispute might have lasted longer, but it was cut
short by the reappearance of the yelloAV fever in the
fleet, this time in a deadlier form. The Spanish
offer w^as accepted, and Carthagena was left to its
owners. It was time to be off, for the heat was
telling, and the men began to drop with appalling-
rapidity. Nombre de Dios and Panama were near
and under their lee, and Drake threw longing eyes
on what, if all else had been well, might have
proved an easy capture. But on a review of their
strength, it was found that there were but 700 fit
for duty who could be spared for the service, and a
council of war decided that a march across the Isth-
mus with so small a force was too dangerous to be
The Great Expedition to the West Indies 145
ventured. Eiiougli liad been done for glory, enough
for the political impression to be made in Em-ope.
The King of Spain had been dared in his own do-
minions. Three fine Spanish cities had been cap-
tured by storm and held to ransom. In other as-
pects the success had fallen short of expectation.
This time they had taken no Oacafuego with a
year's produce of the mines in her hold. The plate
and coin had been carried oif, and the spoils had
been in a form not easily turned to value. The ex-
pedition had been fitted out by private persons to
pay its own cost. The result in money was but
G0,000?. Forty thousand had to be set aside for ex-
penses. There remained but 20,000^ to be shared
among the ships' companies. Men and ofiicers had
entered, high and low, without wages, on the chance
of what they might get. The ofiicers and owners
gave a significant demonstration of the splendid
spirit in which they had gone about their work.
They decided to relinquish their own claims on the
ransom paid for Carthagena, and bestow the same
on the common seamen, ' Avishing it were so much
again as would be a sufiicient reward for their pain-
ful endeavour.'
Thus all were well satisfied, conscious all that
they had done their duty to their Queen and
country. The adventurers' fleet turned homewards
at the beginning of April. What men could do
they had achieved. Thej could not fight against
the pestilence of the tropics. For many days the
yellow fever did its deadly work among them, and
10
146 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
ouly slowly abated. They were delayed by calms
and unfavourable winds. Their water ran short.
They had to land again at Cape Antonio, the
western point of Cuba, and sink wells to supply
themselves. Drake himself, it was observed,
worked with spade and bucket, like the meanest
person in the whole company, always foremost
where toil was to be endured or honour won, the
wisest in the devising of enterprises, the calmest in
danger, the first to set an example of energy in
difficulties, and, above all, the firmest in maintain-
ing order and discipline. The fever slackened as
they reached the cooler latitudes. They worked
their way up the Bahama Channel, going north to
avoid the trades. The French Protestants had
been attempting to colonise in Florida. The
Spaniards had built a fortress on the coast, to ob-
serve their settlements and, as occasion offered, cut
Huguenot throats. As he passed by Drake paid
this fortress a visit and wiped it out. Farther
north again he was in time to save the remnant of
an English settlement, raslil}' planted there by
another brilliant servant of Queen Elizabeth.
Of all the famous Elizabethans Sir Walter Raleigh
is the most romantically interesting. His splen-
did and varied gifts, his chequered fortunes, and
his cruel end, will embalm his memory in English
history. But Ealeigh's great accomplishments
promised more than they performed. His hand
was in everything, but of work successfully com-
pleted he had less to shoAV than others far his in-
The Great Expedition to tJie West Indies 147
feriors, to whom fortune had offered fewer oppor-
tunities. He was engaged in a hundi'ed schemes at
once, and in every one of them there was always
some taint of self, some personal ambition or private
object to be gained. His life is a record of under-
takings begun in enthusiasm, maintained imper-
fectly, and failures in the end. Among his other
adventui'es he had sent a colony to Virginia. He
had imagined, or had been led by others to believe,
that there was an Indian Court there brilliant as
Montezuma's, an enlightened nation crying to be
admitted within the charmed circle of Gloriana's
subjects. His princes and princesses proved things
of air, or mere Indian savages ; and of Raleigh there
remains nothing in Virginia save the name of the
city which is called after him. The starving sur-
vivors of his settlement on the Roanoke River were
taken on board by Drake's returning squadron and
carried home to England, where they all arrived
safely, to the glory of God, as our pious ancestors
said and meant in unconventional sincerity, on the
28th of July, 1586.
The expedition, as I have said, barely paid its
cost. In the shape of wages the officers received
nothing, and the crews but a few pounds a man ;
but there was, perhaps, not one of them who was
not better pleased with the honour which he had
brought back than if he had come home loaded with
doubloons.
Startled Catholic Europe meanwhile rubbed its
eyes and began to see that the ' enterprise of Eng-
148 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
land,' as tlie intended invasion was called, might
not be the easy thing which the seminary priests
described it. The seminary priests had said that
so far as England was Protestant at all it w^as
Protestant only by the accident of its Government,
that the immense majority of the people were Cath-
olic at heart and were thirsting for a return to the
fold, that on the first appearance of a Spanish army
of deliverance the whole edifice which Elizabeth
had raised would crumble to the ground. I suppose
it is true that if the world had then been advanced
to its present point of progress, if there had been
then recognised a Divine right to rule in the numeri-
cal majority, even without a Spanish army the
seminary priests would have had their way. Eliza-
beth's Parliaments were controlled by the municipal-
ities of the towns, and the towns were Protestant.
APa^rliament chosen by universal suffrage and elec-
toral districts would have sent Cecil and Walsingham
into private life or to the scaffold, replaced the Mass
in the churches, and reduced the Queen, if she had
l^een left on the throne, into the humble servant of
the Pope and Philip. It Avould not perhaps have
lasted, but that, so far as I can judge, would have
l)een the immediate result, and instead of a Refor-
mation we should have had the light come in the
shape of lightning. But I have often asked my
Radical friends what is to be done if out of every
hundred enlightened voters two-thirds will give
their votes one way, but are afraid to fight, and the
remaining third will not only vote but will fight too
The Great Expedition to the West Indies 149
if the poll goes against them. Which has then the
right to rule ? I can tell them which will rule.
The brave and resolute minority will rule. Plato
says that if one man was stronger than all the rest
of mankind he would rule all the rest of man-
kind. It must be so, because there is no apj)eaL
The majority must be prepared to assert their
Divine right with their right hands, or it will go the
way that other Divine rights have gone before. I
will not believe the world to have been so ill-con-
structed that there are rights which cannot be en-
forced. It appears to me that the true right to rule
in any nation lies with those who are best and
bravest, whether their numbers are large or small ;
and three centuries ago the best and bravest part of
this English nation had determined, though they
were but a third of it, that Pope and Spaniard
should be no masters of theirs. Imagination goes
for much in such excited times. To the imagination
of Europe in the sixteenth century the power of
Spain appeared irresistible if she chose to exert it.
Heretic Dutchmen might rebel in a remote province,
English pirates might take liberties Avith Spanish
traders, but the Prince of Parma was making the
Dutchmen feel their master at last. The pirates
were but so many wasps, with venom in their stings,
but powerless to affect the general tendencies of
things. Except to the shrewder eyes of such men
as Santa Cruz the strength of the English at sea
had been left out of count in the calculations of the
resources of Elizabeth's Government. Suddenly a
150 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
fleet of these same pirates, sent out, unassisted by
their sovereign, by the private impulse of a few in-
dividuals, had insulted the sacred soil of Spain her-
self, sailed into Vigo, pillaged the churches, taken
anything that they required, and had gone away
unmolested. They had attacked, stormed, burnt, or
held to ransom three of Spain's proudest colonial
cities, and had come home uufought with. The
Catholic conspirators had to recognise that they
had a worse enemy to deal with than Puritan con-
troversialists or spoilt Court favourites. The Prot-
estant English mariners stood between them and
their prey, and had to be encountered on an ele-
ment which did not bow to popes or princes,
before Mary Stuart was to wear Elizabeth's crown
or Cardinal Allen be enthroned at Canterbury. It
was a revelation to all parties. Elizabeth herself
had not expected — perhaps had not wished— so
signal a success. War was now looked on as in-
evitable. The Spanish admirals represented that
the national honour required revenge for an injury
so open and so insolent. The Pope, who had been
long goading the lethargic Philip into action, be-
lieved that now at last he would be compelled to
move ; and even Philip himself, enduring as he was,
had been roused to perceive that intrigues and con-
spiracies would serve his turn no longer. He must
put out his strength in earnest, or his own Span-
iards might turn upon him as unworthy of the
crown of Isabella. Very reluctantly he allowed the
truth to be brought home to him. He had never
The Great Expedition to the West Indies 151
liked tlie thoiiglit of invading England. If he con-
quered it, lie would not be allowed to keep it.
Mary Stuart would have to be made queen, and
Mary Stuart was part French, and might be wholly
French. The burden of the work would be thrown
entirely on his shoulders, and his own reward was
to be the Church's blessing and the approval of his
own conscience — nothing else, so far as he could
see. The Pope would recover his annates, his
Peter's pence, and his indulgence market.
If the thing was to be done, the Pope, it was
clear, ought to pay part of the cost, and this was
what the Pope did not intend to do if he could
help it. The Poj)e was flattering himself that
Drake's performance would compel Spain to go to
war with England whether he assisted or did not.
In this matter Philip attempted to undeceive his
Holiness. He instructed Olivarez, his ambassador
at Rome, to tell the Pope that nothing had been yet
done to him by the English which he could not
overlook, and unless the Pope would come down
with a handsome contribution peace he would
make. The Pope stormed and raged ; he said he
doubted whether Philip was a true son of the Church
at all ; he flung plates and dishes at the servants'
heads at dinner. He said that if he gave Philip
money Philip would put it in his pocket and laugh
at him. Not one maravedi would he give till a
Spanish army was actually landed on English shores,
and from this resolution he was not to be moved.
To Philip it was painfully certain that if he in-
152 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
vaded and conquered England the English Catho-
lics would insist that he must make Mary Stuart
queen. He did not like Mary Stuart. He disap-
proved of her character. He distrusted her prom-
ises. Spite of Jesuits and seminary priests, he be-
lieved that she was still a Frenchwoman at heart,
and a bad woman besides. Yet something he must
do for the outraged honour of Castile. He con-
cluded, in his slow way, that he would collect a fleet,
the largest and best-appointed that had ever floated
on the sea. He would send or lead it in person to
the English Channel. He would command the sit-
uation with an overwhelming force, and then would
choose some coiu'se which would be more conven-
ient to himself than to his Holiness at Home. On
the whole he was inclined to let Elizabeth continue
queen, and forget and forgive if she would put away
her Walsinghams and her Drakes, and would prom-
ise to be good for the future. If she remained ob-
stinate his great fleet would cover the passage of
the Prince of Parma's army, and he would then dic-
tate his own terms in London.
LECTURE VII
ATTACK ON CADIZ
I RECOLLECT being told when a boy, on sending
in a bad translation of Horace, that I ought to
remember that florace was a man of intelligence
and did not write nonsense. The same caution
should be borne in mind by students of history.
They see certain things done by kings and states-
men which they believe they can iuterj^ret by as-
suming such persons to have been knaves or idiots.
Once an explanation given from the baser side of
human nature, they assume that it is necessarily
the right one, and they make their Horace into a
fool without a misgiving that the folly may lie else-
where. Remarkable men and women have usually
had some rational motive for their conduct, which
may be discovered, if we look for it with our eyes
open.
Nobody has suffered more from bad translators
than Elizabeth. The circumstances of Queen Eliz-
abeth's birth, the traditions of her father, the inter-
ests of England, and the sentiments of the party
who had sustained her claim to the succession,
obliged her on coming to the throne to renew the
separation from the Papacy, The Church of Eng-
154: English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
land was re-establislied on an Anglo-Catholic basis,
which the rival factions might interpret each in their
OAvn way. To allow more than one form of public
worship would have led in the heated temper of
men's minds to quarrels and civil wars. But con-
science might be left free under outward conformity,
and those whom the Litui'gy did not suit might use
their own ritual in their private houses. Elizabeth
and her wise advisers believed that if her subjects
could be kept from fighting and killing one another,
and were not exasperated by outward displays of
difference, they would learn that righteousness of
life was more important than orthodoxy, and to es-
timate at their real value the rival dogmas of theol-
ogy. Had time permitted the experiment to have a
fair trial, it would perhaps have succeeded, but, un-
happily for the Queen and for England, the fire of
controversy was still too hot under the ashes.
Protestants and Catholics had been taught to look
on one another as enemies of God, and were still
reluctant to take each other's hands at the bidding
of an Act of Parliament. The more moderate of the
Catholic laity saw no difference so great between the
English service and the Mass as to force them to
desert the churches where their fathers had wor-
shipped for centuries. They petitioned the Council
of Trent for permission to use the English Prayer
Book; and had the Council consented, religious
dissension would have dissolved at last into an in-
nocent difference of opinion. But the Council and
the Pope had determined that there should be no
Attack on Cadiz 155
compromise with heresy, and the request was re-
fused, though it was backed by Philip's ambassador
in London. The action of the Papacy obhged the
Queen to leave the Administration in the hands of
Protestants, on whose loyalty she could rely. As
the struggle with the Reformation spread and deep-
ened she was compelled to assist indirectly the
Protestant party in France and Scotland. But she
still adhered to her own principle ; she refused to
put herself at the head of a Protestant League. She
took no step without keeping open a line of retreat
on a contrary policy. She had Catholics in her
Privy Council who Avere pensioners of Spain. She
filled her household with Catholics, and many a time
di'ove Burghley distracted by listening to them at
critical moments. Her constant effort was to disarm
the antagonism of the adherents of the old belief,
by admitting them to her confidence, and showing
them that one part of her subjects was as dear to
her as another.
For ten years she went on struggling. For ten
years she was proudly able to say that during all
that time no Catholic had suffered for his belief
either in purse or person. The advanced section
of the Catholic clergy was in despair. They saw
the consciences of their flocks benumbed and their
faith growing lukewarm. They stirred up the re-
bellion of the North. They persuaded Pius V. to
force them to a sense of their duties by declaring
Elizabeth excommunicated. They sent their mis-
sionaries through the English counties to recover
156 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
sheep that were straying, and teach the sin of sub-
mission to a sovereign whom the Pope had deposed.
Then had followed the Eidolfi plot, deliberately en-
couraged by the Pope and Spain, which had com-
pelled the Government to tighten the reins. One
conspiracy had followed another. Any means were
held legitimate to rid the world of an enemy of
God. The Queen's character Avas murdered by the
foulest slanders, and a hundred daggers were sharp-
ened to murder her person. The King of Spain
had not advised the excommunication, because he
knew that he would be expected to execute it, and
he had other things to do. When called on to act,
he and Alva said that if the English Catholics wanted
Spanish help they must do something for them-
selves. To do the priests justice, they were brave
enough. What they did, and how far they had suc-
ceeded in making the comitry disaffected, Father
Parsons has told you in the paper which I read to
you in a former lecture. Elizabeth refused to take
care of herself. She would show no distrust. She
would not dismiss the Catholic ladies and gentle-
men from the household. She would allow no penal
laws to be enforced against Catholics as such. Ee-
peated conspiracies to assassinate her were detected
and exposed, but she would take no warning. She
would have no bodyguard. The utmost that she
would do was to allow the Jesuits and seminary
priests, who, by Parsons's OAvn acknowledgment were
sowing rebellion, to be banished the realm, and if
they persisted in remaining afterwards, to be treated
Attack on Cadiz 157
as traitors. When executions are treated as mar-
tyrdoms, candidates will never be wanting for the
crown of glory, and the flame only bnrnt the hotter.
Tyburn and the quartering knife was a horrid busi-
ness, and Elizabeth sickened over it. She hated
the severity which she was compelled to exercise.
Her name was defiled with the gTossest calumnies.
She knew that she might be murdered any day. For
herself she was proudly indiiferent ; but her death
would and must be folloAved by a furious civil war.
She told the Privy Council one day after some
stormy scene, that she would come back afterwards
and amuse herself with seeing the Queen of Scots
making their heads fly.
Philip was weary of it too. He had enough to do
in ruling his own dominions without quarrelling for
ever with his sister-in-law. He had seen that she
had subjects, few or many, who, if he struck, would
strike back again. English money and English
volunteers were keeping alive the war in the Neth-
erlands. English privateers had plundered his gold
ships, destroyed his commerce, and burnt his West
Indian cities — all this in the interests of the Pope,
who gave him fine words in plenty, but who, when
called on for money to help in the English conquest,
only flung about his dinner plates. The Duke of
Alva, while he was alive, and the Prince of Parma,
who commanded in the Netherlands in Alva's place,
advised peace if peace could be had on reasonable
terms. If Elizabeth would consent to withdraw her
help from the Netherlands, and would allow the
158 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Englisli Catholics the tacit toleration with which
her reign had begun, they were of opinion, and
Philip was of opinion too, that it would be better
to forgive Drake and St. Domingo, abandon Mary
Stuart and the seminary priests, and meddle no
more with EngUsh internal politics.
Tired with a condition which was neither war nor
peace, tired with hanging traitors and the endless
problem of her sister of Scotland, Elizabeth saw no
reason for refusing offers which would leave her in
peace for the rest of her own life. Philii3, it was
said, would restore the Mass in the churches in
Holland. She might stipulate for such liberty of
conscience to the Holland Protestants as she was
herself willing to allow the English Catholics. She
saw no reason why she should insist on a liberty of
public worship which she had herself forbidden at
home. She did not see why the Hollanders should
be so precise about hearing Mass. She said she
would rather hear a thousand Masses herself than
have on her conscience the crimes committed for
the Mass or against it. She w^ould not have her
realm in perpetual torment for Mr. Cecil's brothers
in Christ.
This was Elizabeth's personal feeling. It could
not be openly avowed. The States might then sur-
render to Philip in despair, and obtain better securi-
ties for their political liberties than she was ready
to ask for them. They might then join the Span-
iards and become her mortal enemies. But she had
a high opinion of her own statecraft. Her Catholic
Attach on Cadiz 159
friends assured her that, ouce at peace with Philip,
she would be safe from all the world. At this mo-
ment accident revealed suddenly another chasm
v/hich was opening unsuspected at her feet.
Both Philip and she were really wishing for peace.
A treaty of peace between the Catholic King and an
excommunicated princess would end the dream of
a Catholic revolution in England. If the English
peers and gentry saw the censures of the Church
set aside so lightly by the most orthodox prince in
Europe, Parsons and his friends would preach in
vain to them the obligation of rebellion. If this
deadly negotiation was to be broken oil', a blow must
be struck, and struck at once. There was not a mo-
ment to be lost.
The enchanted prisoner at Tutbury was the sleep-
ing and waking dream of Catholic chivalry. The
brave knight who would slay the dragon, deliver
Mary Stuart, and place her on the usurper's throne,
would outdo Orlando or St. George, and be sung of
for ever as the noblest hero who liad ever wielded
brand or spear. Many a young British heart had
thrilled with hope that for him the enterprise was
reserved. One of these was a certain Anthony Bab-
ington, a gentleman of some fortune in Derbyshire.
A seminary priest named Ballard, excited, like the
rest, by the need of action, and anxious to prevent
the peace, fell in with this Babington, and thought
he had found the man for his work. Elizabeth dead
and Mary Stuart free, there would be no more talk
of peace. A plot Avas easily formed. Half a dozen
160 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
gentlemen, five of tliem belonging to or connected
with Elizabeth's own household, were to shoot or
stab her and escape in the confusion; Babington
was to make a dash on Mary Stuart's prison-house
and carry her off to some safe place ; while Ballard
undertook to raise the Catholic peers and have her
proclaimed queen. Elizabeth once removed, it was
supposed that they would not hesitate. Parma
would bring over the Spanish army from Dunkirk.
The Protestants would be paralysed. All would be
begun and ended in a few weeks or even days. The
Catholic religion would be re-established and the
hated heresy would be trampled out for ever. Mary
Stuart had been consulted and had enthusiastically
agreed.
This interesting lady had been lately profuse in
her protestations of a desire for reconcihation with
her dearest sister. Elizabeth had almost believed
her sincere. Sick of the endless trouble with Mary
Stuart and her pretensions and schemings, she had
intended that the Scotch queen should be included
in the treaty with Philip, Avitli an implied recogni-
tion of her right to succeed to the English throne
after Elizabeth's death. It had been necessary, how-
ever, to ascertain in some way whether her protesta-
tions were sincere. A secret watch had been kept
over her correspondence, and Babington's letters
and her own answers had fallen into Walsingham's
hands. There it all Avas in her own cipher, the key
to which had been betrayed by the carelessness of a
confederate. The six gentlemen who were to have
Attack on Cadiz 161
rewarded Elizabeth's confidence by killing her were
easily recognised. They were seized, with Babing-
ton and Ballard, when they imagined themselves on
the eve of their triumph. Babington flinched and
confessed, and they were all hanged. Mary Stuart
herself had outworn compassion. Twice already onf
the discovery of her earlier plots the House of Com-}
mons had petitioned for her execution. For this
last piece of treachery she was tried at Fotheringay
before a commission of Peers and Privy Councillors.
She denied her letters, but her complicity was
proved beyond a doubt. Parhament was called, and
a third time insisted that the long drama should now
be ended and loyal England be allowed to breathe
in peace. Elizabeth signed the warrant. France,
Spain, any other power in the world would have
long since made an end of a competitor so des-
perate and so incurable. Tom by many feelings — ,'
natural pity, dread of the world's opinion — Eliza- •
beth paused before ordering the warrant to be exe- i
cuted. If nothing had been at stake but her own
life, she would have left the lady to weave fresh
plots and at last, perhaps, to succeed. If the na-
tion's safety required an end to be made with her,
she felt it hard that the duty should be thrown on
herself. Where were all those eager champions who
had signed the Association Bond, who had talked
so loudly ? Could none of them be foimd to recol-
lect their oaths and take the law into their own
hands ?
Her Council, Burghley, and the rest, knowing her
11
162 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
disposition and feeling tliat it was life or death to
English liberty, took the responsibility on them-
selves. They sent the warrant down to Fotherin-
gay at their own risk, leaving their mistress to deny,
if she pleased, that she had meant it to be executed ;
and the wild career of Mary Stuart ended on the
scaffold.
They knew what they were immediately doing.
They knew that if treason had a meaning Mary
Stuart had brought her fate upon herself. They did
not, perhaps, realise the full effects that were to fol-
low, or that with Mary Stuart had vanished the last
serious danger of a Catholic insurrection in Eng-
land ; or perhaps the}' did reahse it, and this was
what decided them to act.
I cannot dwell on this here. As long as there
was a Catholic princess of English blood to succeed
to the throne, the allegiance of the Catholics to
Elizabeth had been easily shaken. If she was spared
now, every one of them would look on her as their
future sovereign. To overthrow Elizabeth might
mean the loss of national independence. The Queen
of Scots gone, they were paralysed by divided coun-
sels, and love of country proved stronger than their
creed.
Wliat concerns us specially at present is the effect
on the King of Spain. The reluctance of Philip to
undertake the English enterprise (the ' empresa,' as
it was generally called) had arisen from a fear that
when it was accomplished he would lose the fruit of
his labours. He could never assure himself that if
Attack on Cadiz 163
lie placed Mary Stuart on the throne she would not
become eventually French. He now learnt that she
had bequeathed to himself her claims on the English
succession. He had once been titular King of Eng-
land. He had pretensions of his OAvn, as in the de-
scent from Edward III. The Jesuits, the Catholic
enthusiasts throughout Europe, assured him that if
he would now take up the cause in earnest, he might
make England a province of Spain. There were still
difficulties. He might hope that the English Catho-
lic laity would accept him, but he could not be sure
of it. He could not be sm-e that he would have the
support of the Pope. He continued, as the Conde
de Feria said scornfully of him, ' meando en vado,'
a phrase which I cannot translate ; it meant hesitat-
ing when he ought to act. But he saw, or thought
he saw, that he could now take a stronger attitude
towards Elizabeth as a claimant to her throne. If
the treaty of peace was to go forward, he could raise
his terms. He could insist on the restoration of the
Catholic religion in England. The States of the
Low Countries had made over five of their strongest
towns to Elizabeth as the price of her assistance.
He could insist on her restoring them, not to the
States, but to himself. Could she be brought to
consent to such an act of perfidy, Parma and he
both felt that the power would then be gone from
her, as effectually as Samson's when his locks were
clipped by the harlot, and they could leave her then,
if it suited them, on a throne which would have be-
come a pillory — for the finger of scorn to point at.
16-i English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
With siicli a view before him it was more than
ever necessary for Philip to hurry forward the prep-
arations which he had ah-eady commenced. Tlie
more formidable he could make himself, the better
able he would be to frighten Elizabeth into sub-
mission.
Every dockyard in Spain was set to work, build-
ing galleons and collecting stores. Santa Cruz
would command. Philip was himself more resolved
than ever to accompany the expedition in person
and dictate from the English Channel the condi-
tions of the pacification of Europe.
Secrecy was no longer attempted — indeed, was no
longer possible. All Latin Christendom was pal-
pitating with expectation. At Lisbon, at Cadiz, at
Barcelona, at Naples, the shipwrights were busy
night and day. The sea was covered with vessels
freighted with arms and provisions streaming to the
mouth of the Tacus, Catholic volunteers from all
nations flocked into the Peninsula, to take a share
in the mighty movement which was to decide the
fate of the world, and bishops, priests, and monks
were set praying through the whole Latin Com-
munion that Heaven would protect its own cause.
Meantime the negotiations for peace continued,
and Elizabeth, strange to say, persisted in listening.
She would not see what was plain to all the world
besides. The execution of the Queen of Scots lay
on her spirit and threw her back into the obstinate
humour which had made Walsingham so often
despair of her safety. For two months after that
Attach on Cadiz 165
scene at Fotheringay slie liad refused to see Burgli-
ley, and woiild consult no one but Sir James Crofts
and lier Spanish-tempered ladies. Slie knew that
Spain now intended that she should betray the
towns in the Low Countries, yet she Avas blind to
the infamy which it would bring upon her. She
left her troops there without their wages to shiver
into mutiny. She named commissioners, with Sir
James Crofts at their head, to go to Ostend and
treat with Parma, and if she had not resolved on an
act of treachery she at least played with the temp-
tation, and persuaded herself that if she chose to
make over the towns to Philip, she would be only
restoring them to their lawful owner. ^
Burghley and Walsingham, 3'ou can see from their
letters, believed now that Elizabeth had ruined her-
self at last. Happily her moods were variable as
the weather. She was forced to see the condition
to which she had reduced her affairs in the Low
Countries by the appearance of a number of starv-
ing wretches who had deserted from the garrisons
there and had come across to clamour for their pay
at her own palace gates. If she had no troops in
the field but a mutinous and starving rabble, she
might get no terms at all. It might be well to show
Philip that on one element at least she could still
be dangerous. She had lost nothing by the bold
actions of Drake and the privateers. With half a
heart she allowed Drake to fit them out again, take
the Buonaventura, a ship of her own, to carry his
flag, and go down to the coast of Spain and see
1G6 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
wliat was going on. He was not to do too much.
Slie sent a vice-admiral witli liim, in the Lion, to be
a check on over-audacity. Drake knew how to deal
with embarrassing vice-admirals. His own adven-
turers would sail, if he ordered, to the Mountains of
the Moon, and be quite certain that it was the right
place to go to. Once mider way and on the blue
water he would go his own course and run his own
risks. Cadiz Harbour was thronged with transports,
provision ships, powder vessels — a hundred sail of
them — many of a thousand tons and over, loading
with stores for the Armada. There were thirty sail
of adventurers, the smartest ships afloat on the
ocean, and sailed by the smartest seamen that ever
handled rope or tiller. Something might be done
at Cadiz if ho did not say too much about it. The
leave had been given to him to go, but he knew by
experience, and Burghley again warned him, that
it might, and probably would, be revoked if he
waited too long. The moment was his own, and ho
used it. He was but just in time. Before his sails
were under the horizon a courier galloped into
Plymouth with orders that under no condition was he
to enter port or haven of the King of Spain, or in-
jure Spanish subjects. What else was he going out
for ? He had guessed how it would be. Comedy
or earnest he could not tell. If earnest, some such
order would be sent after him, and he had not an
instant to lose.
He sailed on the morning of the 12th of April.
Off Ushant he fell in with a north-west gale, and he
Attack on Cadiz 167
flew on, spreading every stitch of canvas whicli his
spars would bear. In five days he was at Cape St.
Vincent. On the 18th he had the white houses of
Cadiz right in front of hiin, and could see for him-
self the forests of masts from the ships and trans-
ports with which the harbour was choked. Here
was a chance for a piece of service if there was
courage for the venture. He signalled for his officers
to come on board the Buonaventura. There before
their eyes was, if not the Armada itself, the ma-
terials which were to fit the Armada for the seas.
Did they dare to go in with him and destroy them ?
There were batteries at the harbour mouth, but
Drake's mariners had faced Spanish batteries at St.
Domingo and Carthagena and had not found them
very formidable. Go in ? Of course they would.
"Where Drake would lead the corsairs of Plymouth
were never afraid to follow. The vice-admiral
pleaded danger to her Majesty's ships. It was not
the business of an English fleet to be particular
about danger. Straight in they went with a fair
wind and a flood tide, ran past the batteries and
under a storm of shot, to which they did not trouble
themselves to wait to reply. The poor vice-admiral
followed reluctantly in the Lion. A single shot hit
the Lion, and he edged away out of range, anchored,
and drifted to sea again with the ebb. But Drake
and all the rest dashed on, sank the guardship —
a large galleon — and sent flying a fleet of galleys
which ventured too near them and were never seen
again.
1C8 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Further resistance there was none — absolutely
none. The crews of the store ships escaped in their
boats to land. The governor of Cadiz, the same
Duke of Medina Sidonia who the next year was to
gain a disastrous immortality, fled ' like a tall gen-
tleman' to raise troops and prevent Drake from
landing. Drake had no intention of landing. At
his extreme leisure he took possession of the Span-
ish shipping, searched every vessel, and carried off
everything that he could use. He detained as pris-
oners the few men that he found on board, and
then, after doing his work deliberately and com-
pletely, he set the hulls on fire, cut the cables, and
left them to drive on the rising tide under the walls
of the towTi — a confused mass of blazing ruin. On
the 12th of April he had sailed from Plymouth ; on
the 19th he entered Cadiz harbour ; on the 1st of
May he passed out again without the loss of a boat
or a man. He said in jest that he had singed the
King of Spain's beard for him. In sober prose he
had done the King of Spain an amount of damage
which a million ducats and a year's labour would
imperfectly replace. The daring rapidity of the
enterprise astonished Spain, and astonished Europe
more than the storm of the West Indian towns.
The English had long teeth, as Santa Cruz had
told Philip's council, and the teeth would need
drawing before Mass would be heard again at
Westminster. The Spaniards were a gallant race,
and a dashing exploit, though at their own expense,
could be admired by the countrymen of Cervantes.
Attack on Cadiz 169
' So praised,' we read, ' was Drake for liis valour
among them that tliey said if he was not a Lutheran
there would not be the like of hirn in the world.'
A Court lady was invited by the King to join a
party on a lake near Madrid. The lady replied that
she dared not trust herself on the water with his
Majesty lest Sir Francis Drake should have her.
Drake might well be praised. But Drake would
have been the first to divide the honour with the
comrades who were his arm and hand. Great ad-
mirals and generals do not win their battles single-
handed like the heroes of romance. Orders avail
only when there are men to execute them. Not a
captain, not an officer who served under Drake,
ever flinched or blundered. Never was such a
school for seamen as that twenty years' privateer-
ing war between the servants of the Pope and the
West-country Protestant adventurers. Those too
must be remembered who built and rigged the ships
in which they sailed and fought their battles. We
may depend upon it that there was no dishonesty
in contractors, no scamping of the work in the yards
where the Plymouth rovers were fitted out for sea.
Their hearts were in it ; they were soldiers of a
common cause.
Three weeks had sufficed for Cadiz. No order
for recall had yet arrived, Drake had other plans
before him, and the men were in high spirits and
ready for anything. K fleet of Spanish men-of-war
was expected round from the Mediterranean. He
proposed to stay for a week or two in the neigh-
170 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
bourliood of tlie Straits, in the liope of falling in
with them. He wanted fresh water, too, and had
to find it somewhere.
Before leaving Cadiz Roads he had to decide
what to do with his prisoners. Many English w^ere
known to be in the hands of the Holy Office work-
ing in irons as g;dley slaves. He sent in a pinnace
to propose an exchange, and had to wait some days
for an answer. At length, after a reference to Lis-
bon, the Spanish authorities replied that they had
no English prisoners. If this was true those they
had must have died of barbarous usage ; and after
a consultation with his officers Sir Francis sent in
word that for the future such prisoners as they
might take would be sold to the Moors, and the
money applied to the redemption of English cap-
tives in other parts of the world.
Water was the nest point. There were springs
at Faro, with a Spanish force stationed there to
guard them. Force or no force, water was to be
had. The boats were sent on shore. The boats'
crews stormed the forts and filled the casks. The
vice-admiral again lifted up his A^oice. The Queen
had ordered that there was to be no landing on
Spanish soil. At Cadiz the order had been ob-
served. There had been no need to land. Here at
Faro there had been direct defiance of her Majesty's
command. He became so loud in his clamours that
Drake found it necessary to lock him up in his own
cabin, and at length to send him home with his ship
to complain. For himself, as the expected fleet
Attack on Cadiz 171
from the Straits did not appear, and as lie liad
shaken off his troublesome second in command, he
proceeded leisurely ujd the coast, intending to look
in at Lisbon and see for himself how things were
going on there. All along as he went he fell in
with traders loaded with supplies for the use of the
Armada. All these he destroyed as he advanced,
and at length found himself under the purple hills
of Cintra and looking up into the Tagus. There
lay gathered together the strength of the fighting
naval force of Spain — fifty great galleons, already
arrived, the largest warships which then floated on
the ocean. Santa Cruz, the best officer in the
Spanish navy, was himself in the town and in com-
mand. To venture a repetition of the Cadiz exploit
in the face of such odds seemed too desperate even
for Drake, but it was one of those occasions wdien
the genius of a great commander sees more than
ordinary eyes. He calculated, and, as was proved
afterwards, calculated rightly, that the galleons
would be half manned, or not manned at all, and
crowded with landsmen bringing on board the
stores. Their sides as they lay would be choked
with hulks and lighters. They would be unable to
get their anchors up, set their canvas, or stir from
their moorings. Daring as Drake was known to
be, no one would expect him to go with so small a
force into the enemy's stronghold, and there would
be no preparations to meet him. ' He could count
upon the tides. The winds at that season of the
year were fresh and steady, and could be counted
172 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
on also to take liim in or out ; there was sea room
in tlie river for such vessels as the adventurers' to
manoeuvre and to retreat if overmatched. Rash as
such an enterprise might seem to an unprofessional
eye, Drake certainly thought of it, perhaps had
meant to try it in some form or other and so make
an end of the Spanish invasion of England. He
could not venture without asking first for his mis-
tress's permission. He knew her nature. He knew
that his services at Cadiz would outweigh his dis-
regard of her orders, and that so far he had nothing
to fear ; but he knew also that she was still hanker-
ing after peace, and that without her leave he must
do nothing to make peace impossible. There is a
letter from him to the Queen, written when he was
lying off Lisbon, very characteristic of the time and
the man.
Nelson or Lord St. Vincent did not talk much of
expecting supernatural assistance. If they had we
should suspect them of using language conventionally
which they would have done better to leave alone.
Sir Francis Drake, like his other great contem-
poraries, believed that he was engaged in a holy
cause, and was not afraid or ashamed to say so.
His object was to protest agamst a recall in the
flow of victory. The Spaniards, he said, were but
mortal men. They were enemies of the Truth, up-
holders of Dagon's image, which had fallen in other
days before the Ark, and would fall again if boldly
defied. So long as he had ships that would float,
and there was food on board them for the men to
Attach on Cadiz 173
eat, he entreated her to let hmi stay and strike when-
ever a chance was oflfered him. The continuing to
the end yielded the true glory. When men were
serving religion and their country, a merciful God,
it was likely, would give them victory, and Satan
and his angels should not prevail.
All in good time. Another year and Drake
would have the chance he wanted. For the mo-
ment Satan had prevailed — Satan in the shape of
Elizabeth's Catholic advisers. Her answer came.
It was warm and generous. She did not, could
not, blame him for what he had done so far, but
she desired him to provoke the King of Spain no
further. The negotiations for peace had opened,
and must not be interfered with.
This prohibition from the Queen prevented, per-
haps, what would have been the most remarkable
exploit in English naval history. As matters stood
it would have been perfectly possible for Drake to
have gone into the Tagus, and if he could not have
burnt the galleons he could certainly have come
away unhurt. He had guessed their condition
with entire correctness. The ships were there, but
the ships' companies were not on board them.
Santa Cruz himself admitted that if Drake had
gone iu he could have himself done nothing ' por
falta de gente ' (for want of men). And Drake
undoubtedly would have gone, and would have
done something with which all the world would
have rung, but for the positive command of his
mistress. He lingered in the roads at Cintra, hop-
174 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
ing that Santa Cruz would come out and meet him.
All Spain was clamouring at Santa Cruz's inaction.
Philip wrote to stir the old admiral to energy. He
must not allow himself to be defied by a squadron
of insolent rovers. He must chase them off the
coast or destroy them. Santa Cruz needed no
stirring. Santa Cniz, the hero of a hmidred fights,
was chafing at his own impotence ; but he was
obliged to tell his master that if he wished to have
service out of his galleons he must provide crews
to handle them, and they must rot at their anchors
till he did. He told him, moreover, that it was
time for him to exert himself in earnest. If he
waited much longer, England would have grown too
strong for him to deal with.
In strict obedience Drake ought now to have
gone home, but the campaign had brought so far
more glory than prize money. His comrades re-
quired some consolation for their disappointment
at Lisbon. The theory of these armaments of the
adventurers was that the cost should be paid some-
how by the enemy, and he could be assured that if
he brought back a prize or two in which she could
claim a share the Queen w^ould not call him to a
very strict account. Homeward-bound galleons or
merchantmen were to be met with occasionally at
the Azores. On leaving Lisbon Drake headed
away to St. Michael's, and his lucky star was still
in the ascendant.
As if sent on purpose for him, the San Philip, a
magnificent caraque from the Indies, fell straight
Attack on Cadiz 175
into his hands, ' so richly loaded,' it was said, ' that
every man in the fleet counted his fortune made.'
There was no need to wait for more.' It was but
two months since Drake had sailed from Plymouth.
He could now go home after a cruise of which the
history of his own or any other country had never
presented the like. He had struck the King of
Spain in his own stronghold. He had disabled the
intended Armada for one season at least. He had
picked up a prize by the way and as if by accident,
worth half a million, to pay his expenses, so that he
had cost nothing to his mistress, and had brought
back a handsome present for her. I doubt if such
a naval estimate was ever presented to an English
House of Commons. Above all he had taught the
self-confident Spaniard to be afraid of him, and he
carried back his jDOor comrades in such a glow of
triumph that they would have fought Satan and all
his angels with Drake at their head.
Our West-country annals still tell how the coun-
try people streamed down in their best clothes to
see the great San Philip towed into Dartmouth
Harbour. English Protestantism was no bad cable
for the nation to ride by in those stormy times, and
deserves to be honourably remembered in a School
of History at an English University.
LECTUEE VIII
SAILING OF THE ARMADA
Peace or war between Spain and England, that
was now the question, with a prospect of securing
the English succession for himself or one of his
daughters. With the whole Spanish nation smart-
ing under the indignity of the burning of the ships
at Cadiz, Philip's warlike ardour had warmed into
something like fire. He had resolved at any rate,
if he was to forgive his sister-in-law at all, to insist
on more than toleration for the Catholics in Eng-
land. He did not contemplate as even possible
that the English privateers, however bold or dex-
terous, could resist such an armament as he was
preparing to lead to the Channel. The Eoyal
Navy, he knew very well, did not exceed twenty-
five ships of all sorts and sizes. The adventurers
might be equal to sudden daring actions, but vrould
and must be crushed by such a fleet as was being
fitted out at Lisbon. He therefore, for himself,
meant to demand that the Catholic religion should
be restored to its complete and exclusive supe-
riority, and certain towns in England were to be
made over to be garrisoned by Spanish troops as
securities for Elizabeth's good behaviour. As often
Sailing of the Armada 177
happens with irresolute men, when they have once
been forced to a decision they are as too hasty as
before they w^ere too slow. Alter Drake had re-
tired from Lisbon the King of Spain sent orders to
the Prince of Parma not to wait for the arrival of
the Armada, but to cross the Channel immediately
with the Flanders army, and bring Elizabeth to her
knees. Parma had more sense than his master.
He represented that he could not cross without a
fleet to cover his passage. His transport barges
would only float in smooth water, and whether the
water was smooth or rough they could be sent to
the bottom by half a dozen English cruisers from
the Thames. Supposing him to have landed, either
in Thanet or other spot, he reminded Philip that
he could not have at most more than 25,000 men
with him. The English militia were in training.
The Jesuits said they were disaffected, but the Jes-
uits might be making a mistake. He might have
to fight more than one battle. He would have to
leave detachments as he advanced to London, to
cover his communications, and a reverse would be
fatal. He would obey if his Majesty persisted, but
he recommended Philip to continue to amuse the
English with the treaty till the Armada was ready,
and, in evident consciousness that the enterprise
would be harder than PhiHp imagined, he even
gave it as his own opinion still (notwithstanding
Cadiz), that if Elizabeth would surrender the cau-
tionary towns in Flanders to Spain, and would
grant the English Catholics a fair degree of liberty,
12
178 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Oentury
it Avoiild be Philip's interest to make peace at once
without stipulating for further terms. He could
make a new war if he wished at a future time, when
circumstances might be more convenient and the
Netherlands revolt subdued.
To such conditions as these it seemed that Eliz-
abeth was inclining to consent. The towns had
been trusted to her keeping by the Netherlanders.
To give them up to the enemy to make better con-
ditions for herself would be an infamy so great as to
have disgraced Elizabeth for ever; yet she would
not see it. She said the towns belonged to Philip
and she would only be restoring his own to him.
Burghley bade her, if she wanted peace, send back
Drake to the Azores and frighten Philip for his gold
ships. She was in one of her ungovernable moods.
Instead of sending out Drake again she ordered her
own fleet to be dismantled and laid up at Chatham,
and she condescended to apologise to Parma for the
burning of the transports at Cadiz as done against
her orders.
This was in December 1587, only five months
before the Armada sailed from Lisbon. Never had
she brought herself and her country so near ruin.
The entire safety of England rested at that moment
on the adventurers, and on the adventurers alone.
Meanwhile, with enormous effort the destruction
at Cadiz had been repaired. The great fleet was
pushed on, and in February Santa Cruz reported
himself almost ready. Santa Cruz and Philip, how-
ever, were not in agreement as to what should be
Sailing of the Armada 179
done. Santa Ciaiz was a fighting admiral, Philip
was not a fighting king. He changed his mind as
often as Elizabeth. Hot fits varied with cold. His
last news from England led him to hope that fight-
ing would not be wanted. The Commissioners were
sitting at Ostend. On one side there were the
formal negotiations, in which the surrender of the
towns was not yet treated as an open question.
Had the States been aware that Elizabeth was even
in thought entertaining it, they would have made
terms instantly on their own account and left her
alone in the cold. Besides this, there was a second
negotiation underneath, carried on by private agents,
in which the surrender was to be the special condi-
tion. These complicated schemings Parma pur-
posely protracted, to keep Elizabeth in false secui'ity.
She had not deliberately intended to give up the
towns. At the last moment she would have proba-
bly refused, unless the States themselves consented
to it as part of a general settlement. But she was
playing with the idea. The States, she thought,
were too obstinate. Peace would be good for them,
and she said she might do them good if she pleased,
whether they liked it or not.
Parma was content that she should amuse her-
self with words and neglect her defences by sea
and land. By the end of February Santa Cruz was
ready. A northerly wind blows strong down the
coast of Portugal in the spring months, and he
meant to be off before it set in, before the end of
March at latest. Unfortunately for Spain, Santa
ISO English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Cruz fell ill at the last moment — ill, it was said,
with anxiety. Santa Cruz knew well enough what
Philip would not know — that the expedition would
be no holiday parade. He had reason enough to
be anxious if Philip was to accompany him and tie
his hands and embarrass him. Any way, Santa
Cruz died after a few days' illness. The sailing
had to be suspended till a new commander could
be decided on, and in the choice which Philip made
he gave a curious proof of what he intended the ex-
pedition to do. He did not really expect or wish
for any serious fighting. He wanted to be sovereign
of England again, with the assent of the English
Catholics. He did not mean, if he could help it, to
irritate the national pride by force and conquest.
While Santa Cruz lived, Spanish public opinion
would not allow him to be passed over. Santa
Cruz must command, and Philip had resolved to go
with him, to prevent too violent proceedings. Santa
Cruz dead, he could find someone who would do
what he was told, and his own presence would no
longer be necessary.
The Duke of Medina Sidonia, named El Bueno,
or the Good, was a grandee of highest rank. He
was enormously rich, fond of hunting and shooting,
a tolerable rider, for the rest a harmless creature
getting on to forty, conscious of his defects, but not
aware that so great a prince had any need to mend
them ; without vanity, without ambition, and most
happy when lounging in his orange gardens at San
Lucan. Of active service he had seen none. He
Sailing of the Armada 181
was Captain-General of Andalusia, and had run
away from Cadiz when Drake came into the har-
bour ; but that was all. To his astonishment and to
his dismay, he learnt that it was on him that the choice
had fallen to be the Lord High Admiral of Spain
and commander of the so much talked of expedition
to England. He protested his unfitness. He said
that he was no seaman ; that he knew nothing of
fighting by sea or land ; that if he ventured out in a
boat he was always sick ; that he had never seen the
English Channel ; and that, as to politics, he neither
knew anything nor cared anything about them. In
short, he had not one qualification which such a
post required.
Philip liked his modesty ; but in fact the Duke's
defects were his recommendations. He would obey
his instructions, would not fight unless it was neces-
sary, and would go into no rash adventures. All
that Philip wanted him to do was to find the Prince
of Parma, and act as Parma should bid him. As to
seamanship, he would have the best officers in the
navy under him ; and for a second in command he
should have Don Diego de Valdez, a cautious,
silent, sullen old sailor, a man after Philip's own
heart.
Doubting, hesitating, the Duke repaired to Lis-
bon. There he v^as put in better heart by a nun,
who said Our Lady had sent her to promise him
success. Every part of the service .was new to him.
He was a fussy, anxious little man ; set himself
to inquire into everything, to meddle with things
182 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
which he could not understand and had better have
left alone. He ought to have left details to the
responsible heads of departments. He fancied that
in a week or two he could look himself into ever}^-
thing. There were 130 ships, 8,000 seamen, 19,000
Spanish infantry, with gentlemen volunteers, officers,
priests, surgeons, galley slaves — at least 3,000 more
— provisioned for six months. Then there were the
ships' stores, arms small and great, powder, spars,
cordage, canvas, and such other million necessities
as ships on service need. The whole of this the
poor Duke took on himself to examine into, and,
as he could not understand what he saw, and knew
not what to look at, nothing was examined into at
all. Everyone's mind was, in fact, so much ab-
sorbed by the spiritual side of the thing that they
could not attend to vulgar commonplaces. Don
Quixote, wdien he set out on his expedition, and
forgot money and a change of linen, was not in a
state of wilder exaltation than Catholic Europe at
the sailing of the Armada. Every noble family in
Spain had sent one or other of its sons to fight for
Christ and Our Lady.
For three years the stream of prayer had been
ascending from church, cathedral, or oratory. The
King had emptied his treasury. The hidalgo and
the tradesman had offered their contributions. The
crusade against the Crescent itself had not kindled
a more intense or more sacred enthusiasm. All
pains were taken to make the expedition spiritually
worthy of its purpose. No impure thing, specially
Sailing of the Armada 183
no impure woman, was to approach tlie yards or
ships. Swearing, quarrelling, gambling, were pro-
hibited under terrible penalties. The galleons were
named after the apostles and saints to whose charge
they were committed, and every seaman and soldier
confessed and communicated on going on board.
The shipboys at sunrise were to sing their Buenos
Dias at the foot of the mainmast, and their Ave
Maria as the sun sank into the ocean. On the
Imperial banner were embroidered the figures of
Christ and His Mother, and as a motto the haughty
' Plus Ultra ' of Charles V. was replaced with the
more pious aspiration, 'Exsurge, Deus, et vindica
causam tuam.'
Nothing could be better if the more vulgar neces-
sities had been looked to equally well. Unluckily,
Medina Sidonia had taken the inspection of these
on himself, and Medina Sidonia was unable to cor-
rect the information which any rascal chose to give
him.
At length, at the end of April, he reported him-
self satisfied. The banner was blessed in the cathe-
dral, men and stores all on board, and the Invincible
Armada prepared to go upon its way. No wonder
Philip was confident. A hundred and thirty gal-
leons, from 1,300 to 700 tons, 30,000 fighting men,
besides slaves and servants, made up a force which
the world might well think invincible. The guns
were the weakest part. There were twice as many
as the English; but they were for the most part
nine and six pounders, and with but fifty rounds to
184 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
each. The Spaniards had done their sea fighting
hitherto at close range, grappling and trusting to
musketry. They were to receive a lesson about
this before the summer was over. But Philip him-
self meanwhile expected evidently that he would
meet with no opposition. Of priests he had pro-
vided 180 ; of surgeons and surgeons' assistants
eighty-five only for the whole fleet.
In the middle of May he sent down his last
orders. The Duke was not to seek a battle. If he
fell in with Drake he was to take no notice of him,
but thank God, as Dogberry said to the watchman,
that he was rid of a knave. He was to go straight
to the North Foreland, there anchor and communi-
cate with Parma. The experienced admirals who
had learnt their trade under Santa Cruz — Martinez
de Recalde, Pedro de Valdez, Miguel de Oquendo
— strongly urged the securing Plymouth or the Isle
of Wight on their way up Channel. This had evi-
dently been Santa Cruz's own design, and the only
rational one to have followed. Philip did not see it.
He did not believe it would prove necessary ; but as
to this and as to fighting he left them, as he knew
he must do, a certain discretion.
The Duke, then, flying the sacred banner on
the San Martin, dropped down the Tagus on the
14th of May, followed by the whole fleet. The San
3Iartin had been double-timbered with oak, to keep
the shot out. He liked his business no better. In
vain he repeated to himself that it was God's cause.
God would see they came to no harm. He was no
Sailing of the Armada 185
sooner in the open sea than he found no cause, how-
ever holy, saved men from the consequences of their
own blunders. They were late out, and met the
north trade wind, as Santa Cruz had foretold.
They drifted to leeward day by day till they had
dropped down to Cape St. Vincent. Infinite pains
had been taken with the spiritual state of every one
on board. The carelessness or roguery of contrac-
tors and purveyors had not been thought of. The
water had been taken in three mouths before. It
was fouud foul and stinking. The salt beef, the
salt pork, and fish were putrid, the bread full of
maggots and cockroaches. Cask was opened after
cask. It was the same story everywhere. They
had to be all thrown overboard. In the whole fleet
there was not a sound morsel of food but biscuit
and dried fruit. The men went down in hundreds
with dysentery. The Duke bewailed his fate as
innocently as Sancho Panza. He hoped God would
help. He had wished no harm to anybody. He
had left his home and his family to please the King,
and he trusted the King would remember it. He
wrote piteously for fresh stores, if the King would
not have them all perish. Tlie admirals said they
could go no further without fresh water. All w^as
dismay and confusion. The wind at last fell round
south, and they made Finisterre. It then came on
to blow, and they were scattered. The Duke with
half the fleet crawled into Corunna, the crews scarce
able to man the yards and trying to desert in shoals.
The missing ships dropped in one by one, but a
186 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
week passed aud a third of them were still absent.
Another despairing letter went off from the Duke to
his master. He said that he concluded from their
misfortmies that God disapproved of the expedition,
and that it had better be abandoned. Diego Florez
was of the same opinion. The stores were worth-
less, he said. The men were sick and out of heart.
Nothing could be done that season.
It was not by flinching at the first sight of dif-
fi.culty that the Spaniards had become masters of
half the world. The old comrades of Santa Cruz
saw nothing in what had befallen them beyond a
common accident of sea life. To abandon at the first
check an enterprise undertaken with so much pre-
tence, they said, would be cowardly and dishonour-
able. Ships were not lost because they w^ere out of
sight. Fresh meat and bread could be taken on
board from Corunna. They could set up a shore hos-
pital for the sick. The sickness was not dangerous.
There had been no deaths. A little energy and ail
would be well again. Pedro de Valdez despatched
a courier to Philip to entreat him not to listen to
the Duke's croakings. Philip sent a speedy answer
telling the Duke not to be frightened at shadows.
There was nothing, in fact, really to be alarmed
at. Fresh water took away the dysentery. Fresh
food was In'ought in from the country. Galiciau
seamen filled the gaps made by the deserters. The
ships were laid on shore and scraped and tallowed.
Tents were pitched on an island in the harbour,
with altars and priests, and everyone confessed
Sailing of the Armada 187
again and received the Sacrament. 'This,' wrote
the Duke, ' is great riches and a precious jewel,
and all now are well content and cheerful.' The
scattered flock had reassembled. Damages were all
repaired, and the only harm had been loss of time.
Once more, on the 23rd of July, the Ai-mada in full
numbers was under way for England and streaming
across the Bay of Biscay with a fair wind for the
mouth of the Channel.
Leaving the Duke for the moment, we must
now glance at the preparations made in England to
receive him. It miajht almost be said that there were
none at all. The winter months had been wild and
changeable, but not so wild and not so fluctuating
as the mind of England's mistress. In December
her fleet had been paid off at Chatham. The dan-
ger of leaving the country without any regular de-
fence was pressed on her so vehemently that she
consented to allow part of the ships to be recom-
missioned. The Revenge was given to Drake. He
and Howard, the Lord Admiral, were to have gone
with a mixed squadron from the Royal Navy and
the adventurers down to the Spanish coast. In every
loyal subject there had long been but one opinion,
that a good open war was the only road to an hon-
ourable peace. The open Avar, they now trusted,
was come at last. But the hope was raised only to
be disappointed. With the news of Santa Cruz's
death came a report which Elizabeth greedily be-
lieved, that the Armada was dissolving and was not
coming at all. Sir James Crofts sang the usual
188 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
song that Drake aucl Howard wanted war, because
war was their trade. She recalled her orders. She
said that she was assured of peace in six weeks, and
that beyond that time the services of the fleet would
not be required. Half the men engaged were to be dis-
missed at once to save their pay. Drake and Lord
Henry Seymour might cruise with four or five of
the Queen's ships between Plymouth and the So-
lent. Lord Howard was to remain in the Thames
with the rest. I know not whether swearing was
interdicted in the English navy as well as in the
Spanish, but I will answer for it that Howard did
not spare his language when this missive reached
him. ' Never,' he said, ' since England was England
Avas such a stratagem made to deceive us as this
treaty. We have not hands left to carry the ships
back to Chatham. We are like bears tied to a
stake ; the Spaniards may come to worry us like
dogs, and we cannot hurt them.'
It was well for England that she had other de-
fenders than the wildly managed navy of the Queen.
Historians tell us how the gentlemen of the coast
came out in their own vessels to meet the invaders.
Come they did, but who were they? Ships that
could fight the Spanish galleons were not made in
a day or a week. They were built already. They
were manned by loyal subjects, the business of
whose lives had been to meet the enemies of their
land and faith on the wide ocean— not by those who
had been watching with divided hearts for a Catho-
lic revolution.
Sailing of the Armada 189
March went by, and sure intelligence came that
the Armada was not dissolving. . Again Drake
prayed the Queen to let him take the Revenge and
the Western adventurers down to Lisbon ; but the
commissioners wrote full of hope from Ostend, and
Elizabeth was afraid 'the King of Spain might take
it ill.' She found fault with Drake's exjDenses. She
charged him with wasting her ammunition in target
practice. She had it doled out to him in driblets,
and allowed no more than would serve for a day
and a half's service. She kept a sharp hand on the
victualling houses. April went, and her four finest
ships — the Triumph, the Vidorij, the Elizabeth
Jonas, and the Bear — were still with sails unbent,
'keeping Chatham church.' She said they would
not be wanted and it would be waste of money to
refit them. Again she was forced to yield at last,
and the four ships were got to sea in time, the
workmen in the yards making up for the delay ; but
she had few enough when her whole fleet was out
upon the Channel, and but for the privateers there
would have been an ill reckoning when the trial
came. The Armada was coming now. There was
no longer a doubt of it. Lord Henry Seymour was
left mth five Queen's ships and thirty London ad-
venturers to watch Parma and the Narrow Seas.
Howard, carrying his own flag in the ArJc Raleigh,
joined Drake at Plymouth with seventeen others.
Still the numbing hand of his mistress pursued
him. Food supplies had been issued to the middle
of June, and no more was to be allowed. The
190 English Seamen in iJie Sixteenth Century
weather was desperate — wildest summer ever known.
The south-west gales brought the Atlantic rollers
into the Sound. Drake lay inside, perhaps behind
the island which bears his name. Howard rode out
the gales under Mount Edgecumbe, the days going
by and the provisions wasting. The rations were
cut down to make the stores last longer. Owing to
the many changes the crews had been hastily raised.
They were ill-clothed, ill-provided every way, but
they complained of nothing, caught fish to mend
their mess dinners, and prayed only for the speedy
coming of the enemy. Even Howard's heart failed
him now. English sailors would do what could be
done by man, but they could not fight with famine.
'Awake, Madam,' he wrote to the Queen, 'awake,
for the love of Christ, and see the villainous treasons
round about you.' He goaded her into ordering
supplies for one more month, but this was to be
positively the last. The victuallers inquired if they
should make further preparations. She answered
peremptorily, 'No;' and again the weeks ran on.
The contractors, it seemed, had caught her spirit,
for the beer which had been furnished for the fleet
turned som-, and those who drank it sickened. The
ofiicers, on their own responsibility, ordered wine
and arrowroot for the sick out of Plymouth, to be
called to a sharp account when all was over. Again
the rations were reduced. Four weeks' allowance
was stretched to serve for six, and still the Spaniards
did not come. So England's forlorn hope was
treated at the crisis of her destiny. The prepara-
Sailing of the Armada 191
tions on land were scarcely better. The militia had
been called out. A hiindi-ed thousand men had
given their names, and the stations had been ar-
ranged where they were to assemble if the enemy
attempted a landing. But there were no reserves,
no magazines of arms, no stores or tents, no requis-
ites for an army save the men themselves and what
local resources could fui'nish. For a general the
Queen had chosen the Earl of Leicester, who might
have the merit of fidelity to herself, but otherwise
was the worst fitted that she could have found in
her whole dominions ; and the Prince of Parma was
coming, if he came at all, at the head of the best-
provided and best - disciplined troops in Europe.
The hope of England at that moment was in her pa-
tient suffering sailors at Plymouth. Each morning
they looked out passionately for the Spanish sails.
Time was a worse enemy than the galleons. The
six weeks would be soon gone, and the Queen's
ships must then leave the seas if the crews were
not to starve. Drake had certain news that the
Armada had sailed. AATiere was it? Once he dashed
out as far as Ushant, but turned back, lest it should
pass him in the night and find Plymouth unde-
fended; and smaller grew the messes and leaner and
paler the seamen's faces. Still not a man murmured
or gave in. They had no leisure to be sick.
The last week of July had now come. There
were half-rations for one week more, and powder for
two days' fighting. That was all. On so light a
thread such mighty issues were now depending. On
192 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Friday, the 23rd, tlie Armada had started for the
second time, the numbers undiminished; religious
fervour burning again, and heart and hope high as
ever. Saturday, Simday, and Monday they sailed
on with a smooth sea and soft south winds, and on
Monday night the Duke found himself at the Chan-
nel moutli with all his flock about him, Tuesday
morning the wind shifted to the north, then backed
to the Tv^est, and blew hard. The sea got up, broke
into the stern galleries of the galleons, and sent the
galleys looking for shelter in French harbours. The
fleet hove to for a couple of days, till the weather
mended. On Friday afternoon they sighted the
Lizard and formed into fighting order ; the Duke in
the centre, Alonzo de Leyva leading in a vessel of
his own called the Rata Coronada, Don Martin de
Eecalde covering the rear. The entire line stretched
to about seven miles.
The sacred banner was run np to the masthead of
the San Martin. Each ship saluted with all her
guns, and every man — officer, noble, seaman, or
slave — knelt on the decks at a given signal to com-
mend themselves to Mary and her Son. We shall
miss the meaning of this high epic story if we do
not realise that/ both sides had the most profound
conviction that they were fighting the battle of the
Almighty. Two principles, freedom and authority,
were contending for the guidance of mankind. In
the evening the Duke sent off two fast fly-boats to
Parma to announce his arrival in the Channel, with
another reporting progress to Philip, and saying that
Sailing of the Armada 193
till he heard from the Prince he meant to stop at
the Isle of Wight. It is commonly said that his
officers advised him to go in and take Plymouth.
There is no evidence for this. The island would
have been a far more useful position for them.
At dark that Friday night the beacons vi^ere seen
blazing all up the coast and inland on the tops of
the hills. They crept on slowly through Saturday,
with reduced canvas, feeling their way — not a sail
to be seen. At midnight a pinnace brought in a
fishing boat, from which they learnt that on the
sight of the signal fires the English had come out
that morning from Plymouth. Presently, when the
moon rose, they saw sails passing between them and
the land. With daybreak the whole scene became
visible, and the curtain lifted on the first act of the
drama. The Armada was betAveen Rame Head and
the Eddystone, or a little to the west of it. Ply-
mouth Sound was right open to their left. The
breeze, which had dropped in the night, was fresh-
ening from the south-west, and right ahead of them,
outside the Mew Stone, were eleven ships manoeu-
vring to recover the wind. Towards the land were
some forty others, of various sizes, and this formed,
as far as they could see, the v/hole English force.
In numbers the Spaniards were nearly three to one.
In the size of the ships there was no comparison.
With these advantages the Duke decided to engage,
and a signal was made to hold the wind and keep
the enemy apart. The eleven ships ahead were
Howard's squadron ; those inside were Drake and
13
194 English Seamen in tJie Sixteenth Century
tlie adventurers. With some surprise tlie Spanish
officers saw Howard reach easily to windward out
of range and join Drake. The whole English fleet
then passed out close-hauled in line behind them
and swept along their rear, using guns more power-
ful than theirs and pouring in broadsides from safe
distance with deadly effect. Eecalde, with Alonzo
de Leyva and Oquendo, who came to his help, tried
desperately to close ; but they could make nothing
of it. They were out-sailed and out-cannoned.
The English fired five shots to one of theirs, and
the effect was the more destructive because, as with
Rodney's action at Dominica, the galleons were
crowded with troops, and shot and splinters told
terribly among them.
The experience was new and not agreeable.
Eecalde's division was badly cut iip, and a Spaniard
present observes that certain officers showed cow-
ardice— a hit at the Duke, who had kept out of fire.
The action lasted till four in the afternoon. The
wind was then freshening fast and the sea rising.
Both fleets had by this time passed the Sound, and
the Duke, seeing that nothing could be done, sig-
nalled to bear away up Channel, the English fol-
lowing two miles astern. Eecalde's own ship had
been an especial sufferer. She Avas observed to be
leaking badly, to drop behind, and to be in danger
of capture. Pedro de Valdez wore round to help
him in the Capitana, of the Andalusian squadron,
fouled the Santa Catalina in turning, broke his bow-
sprit and foretopmast, and became unmanageable.
Sailing of the Armada 195
The Andalusian Capitana was one of the finest ships
in the Spanish fleet, and Don Pedro one of the
ablest and most popular commanders. She had
500 men on board, a large sum of money, and,
among other treasures, a box of jewel-hilted swords,
which Phihp was sending over to the English Cath-
olic peers. But it was growing dark. Sea and sky
looked ugly. The Duke was flurried, and signalled
to go on and leave Don Pedro to his fate. Alonzo
de Leyva and Oquendo rushed on board the San
Martin to protest. It was no use. Diego Plorez
said he could not risk the safety of the fleet for a
single oflicer. The deserted Capitana made a brave
defence, but could not save herself, and fell, with
the jewelled swords, 50,000 ducats, and a welcome
supply of powder, into Drake's hands.
Off the Start there was a fresh disaster. Every
one was in ill-humour. A quarrel broke out between
the soldiers and seamen in Oquendo's galleon. He
was himself still absent. Some wretch or other
flung a torch into the powder magazine and jumped
overboard. The deck was blown off, and 200 men
along with it.
Two such accidents following an unsuccessful en-
gagement did not tend to reconcile the Spaniards
to the Duke's command. Pedro de Valdez was
universally loved and honoured, and his desertion
in the face of an enemy so inferior in numbers
was regarded as scandalous poltroonery. Monday
morning broke heavily. The wind was gone, but
there was still a considerable swell. The Enolish
196 Englisli Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
were liuU clown beliind. The day was spent in
repairing damages and nailing lead over tlie sliot-
lioles. Recalde was moved to tlie front, to be out
of harm's way, and De Leyva took his post in the
rear.
At sunset they were outside Portland. The
English had come up within a league ; but it was
now dead calm, and they drifted apart in the tide.
The Duke tliought of nothing, but at midnight the
Spanish officers stirred him out of his sleep to urge
him to set his great galleasses to work ; now was
their chance. The dawn brought a chance still
better, for it brought an east wind, and the Si3an-
iards had now the weather-gage. Could they once
close and grapple "v\dth the English ships, their
superior numbers would then assure them a victory,
and Howard, being to leeward and inshore, would
have to pass through the middle of the Spanish line
to recover his advantage. However, it v/as the same
story. The Spaniards could not use an opportunity
when they had one. New-modelled for superiority
of sailings -the English ships had the same advan-
tage over the galleons as the steam cruisers Avould
have over the old three-deckers. While the breeze
held they went where they pleased. The Spaniards
were out-sailed, out-matched, crushed by guns of
longer range than theirs. Their own shot flew high
over the low English hulls, while every ball found
its way through their own towering sides. This
time the San Martin was in the thick of it. Her
double timbers were ripped and torn ; the holy
Sailing of the Armada 197
standard was cut in two ; the water poured through
the shot-holes. The men lost their nerve. In such
ships as had no gentlemen on board notable signs
were observed of flinching.
At the end of that day's fighting the English
powder gave out. Two days' service had been the
limit of the Queen's allowance. Howard had
pressed for a more liberal supply at the last mo-
ment, and had received the characteristic answer
that he must state precisely how much he wanted
before more could be sent. The lighting of the
beacons had quickened ifche official pulse a little.
A. small addition had been despatched to Weymouth
or Poole, and no more could be done till it arrived.
The Duke, meanwhile, was left to smooth his
ruffled plumes and drift on upon his way. But by
this time England was awake. Fresh privateers,
with powder, meat, bread, fruit, anything that they
could bring, were pouring out from the Dorsetshire
harbours. Sir George Carey had come from the
Needles in time to share the honours of the last
battle, 'round shot,' as he said, 'flying thick as
musket balls in a skirmish on land.'
The Duke had observed uneasily from the San
Martins deck that his pursuers were growing
numerous. He had made up his mind definitely to
go for the Isle of Wight, shelter his fleet in the So-
lent, land 10,000 men in the island, and stand on his
defence till he heard from Parma. - He must fight
another battle ; but, cut up as he had been, he had
as yet lost but two ships, and those by accident.
198 Ewjlisli Seamen in the Sixteenth Centurij
He might fairly hope to force his way in with helj)
from above, for which he had special reason to look
in the next engagement. Wednesday was a breath-
less calm. The English were taking in their sup-
plies. The Ai'mada lay still, repairing damages.
Thursday would be St. Dominic's Day. St. Dom-
inic belonged to the Duke's own family, and was
his patron saint. St. Dominic, he felt sure, would
now stand by his kinsman.
The morning broke with a light air. The Eng-
lish would be less able to move, and with the help
of the galleasses he might hope to come to close
quarters at last. Howard seemed inclined to give
him his wish. With just Avind enough to move the
Lord Admiral led in the Arh Raleigh straight down
on the Spanish centre. The Ark outsailed her con-
sorts and found herself alone with the galleons all
round her. At that moment the wind dropped.
The Spanish boarding-parties Avere at their posts.
The tops were manned with musketeers, the grap-
pling irons all prepared to fling into the Ark's rig-
ging. In imagination the English Admiral was
their own. But each day's experience was to teach
them a new lesson. Eleven boats dropped from
the Ark's sides and took her in tow. The breeze
rose again as she began to move. Her sails filled,
and she slipped away through the water, leaving the
Spaniards as if they were at anchor, staring in help-
less amazement. The wind brought up Drake and
the rest, and then began again the terrible cannon-
ade from which the Armada had already suffered so
Sailing of the Armada 199
frightfully. It seemed that mornuig as if the Eng-
lish were using guns of even heavier metal than on
either of the preceding days. The armament had
not been changed. The growth was in their own
frightened imagination. The Duke had other
causes for uneasiness. His own magazines were
also giving out under the unexpected demands up-
on them. One battle was the utmost which he had
looked for. He had fought three, and the end was
no nearer than before. With resolution he might
still have made his way into St. Helen's roads, for
the English were evidently afraid to close with
him. But when St. Dominic, too, failed him he lost
his head. He lost his heart, and losing heart he
lost all. In the Solent he would have been com-
paratively safe, and he could easily have taken the
Isle of Wight ; but his one thought now was to find
safety under Parma's gaberdine and make for Calais
or Dunkirk. He supposed Parma to have already
embarked, on hearing of his coming, Avith a second
armed fleet, and in condition for immediate action.
He sent on another pinnace, pressing for help,
pressing for ammunition, and fly-boats to protect
the galleons ; and Parma was himself looking to be
supplied from the Armada, with no second fleet at
all, only a flotilla of river barges which would need
a week's work to be prepared for the crossing.
Philip had provided a splendid fleet, a splendid
army, and the finest sailors in the .world except the
English. He had failed to realise that the grandest
preparations are useless with a fool to command.
200 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Centurij
The poor Duke was less to blame than his master.
An office had been thrust upon him for which he
knew that he had not a single qualification. His
one anxiety was to find Parma, lay the weight on
Parma's shoulders, and so have done with it.
On Friday he was left alone to make his way up
Channel towards the French shore. The English
still followed, but he counted that in Calais roads
he would be in French waters, where they would
not dare to meddle with him. They would then,
he thought, go home and annoy him no further.
As he dropped anchor in the dusk outside Calais on
Saturday evening he saw, to his disgust, that the en-
demoniada gente — the infernal devils— as he called
them, had brought up at the same moment with
himself, half a league astern of him. His one trust
was in the Prince of Parma, and Parma at any rate
was now within touch.
LECTITEE IX
DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA
In the gallery at Madrid there is a picture, painted
by Titian, representing the Genius of Spain coming
to the delivery of the afflicted Bride of Christ.
Titian was dead, but the temper of the age survived,
and in the study of that great picture you will see
the spirit in which the Spanish nation had set out
for the conquest of England. The scene is the
seashore. The Church a naked Andromeda, with
dishevelled hair, fastened to the trunk of an ancient
disbranched tree. The cross lies at her feet, the
cup overturned, the serpents of heresy biting at her
from behind with uplifted crests. Coming on be-
fore a leading breeze is the sea monster, the Moslem
fleet, eager for their prey ; while in front is Perseus,
the Genius of Spain, banner in hand, with the le-
gions of the faithful laying not raiment before
him, but shield and helmet, the apparel of war for
the Lady of Nations to clothe herself with strength
and smite her foes.
In the Armada the crusading enthusiasm had
reached its point and focus. England w^as the
stake to which the Virgin, the daughter of Sion,
was bound in captivity. Perseus had come at last
202 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
in the person of tlie Duke of Medina Sidonia, and
with him all that was best and brightest in the
countrymen of Cervantes, to break her bonds and
replace her on her throne. They had sailed into the
Channel in pious hope, with the blessed banner
waving over their heads.
To be the executor of the decrees of Providence is
a lofty ambition, but men in a state of high emotion
overlook the precautions which are not to be dis-
pensed with even on the sublimest of errands. Don
Quixote, when he set out to redress the wrongs of
humanity, forgot that a change of linen might be
necessary, and that he must take money with him
to pay his hotel bills. Philip II., in sending the
Armada to England, and confident in supernatural
protection, imagined an unresisted triumphal pro-
cession. Ho forgot that contractors might be ras-
cals, that water four months in the casks in a hot
climate turned putrid, and that putrid water would
poison his ships' companies, though his crews were
companies of angels. He forgot that the servants
of the evil one might fight for their mistress after
all, and that he must send adequate supplies of
powder, and, worst forgetfulness of all, that a great
naval expedition required a leader who understood
his business. Perseus, in the shape of the Duke of
Medina Sidonia, after a Aveek of disastrous battles,
found himself at the end of it in an exposed road-
stead, where he ought never to have been, nine-
tenths of his provisions thrown overboard as unfit
for food, his ammunition exhausted by the unforeseen
Defeat of the Armada 203
demands upon it, the seamen and soldiers harassed
and dispirited, officers the whole week without sleep,
and the enemy, who had hunted him from Plymouth
to Calais, anchored within half a league of him.
Still, after all his misadventures, he had brought
the fleet, if not to the North Foreland, yet within a
few miles of it, and to outward appearance not ma-
terially injured. Two of the galleons had been
taken ; a third, the Santa Ana, had strayed ; and his
galleys had left him, being found too weak for the
Channel sea ; but the great armament had reached
its destination substantially uninjured so far as
English eyes could see. Hundreds of men had
been killed and hundreds more wounded, and the
spirit of the rest had been shaken. But the loss of
life could only be conjectured on board the English
fleet. The English admiral could only see that the
Duke was now in touch with Parma. Parma, they
knew, had an army at Dunkirk with him, which was
to cross to England. He had been collecting men,
barges, and transports all the winter and spring, and
the backward state of Parma's preparations could
not be anticipated, still less relied upon. The Cal-
ais anchorage was unsafe ; but at that season of the
year, especially after a wet summer, the weather
usually settled ; and to attack the Spaniards in a
French port might be dangerous for many reasons.
It was uncertain after the day of the Barricades
whether the Duke of Guise or Henry of Valois was
master of France, and a violation of the neutrality
laws might easily at that moment bring Guise and
204 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
France into the field on the Spaniards' side. It
was, no doubt, with some such expectation that the
Duke and his advisers had chosen Calais as the
j)oint at which to bring up. It was now Saturday,
the 7th of August. The governor of the town came
off in the evening to the San Martin. He exjoressed
surprise to see the Spanish fleet in so exposed a
position, but he was profuse iu his offers of service.
Anything which the Duke required should be pro-
vided, especially every facility for communicating
with Dunkirk and Parma. The Duke thanked him,
said that he supposed Parma to be already em-
barked with his troops, ready for the passage, and
that his own stay in the roads would be but brief.
On Monday morning at latest he expected that the
attempt to cross would be made. The governor
took his leave, and the Duke, relieved from his anx-
ieties, was left to a peaceful night. He was dis-
turbed on the Sunday morning by an exjDress from
Parma informing him that, so far from being em-
barked, tlie army could not be ready for a fortnight.
The barges were not in condition for sea. The
troops were in camp. The arms and stores were on
the quays at Dunkirk. As for the fly-boats and
ammunition which the Duke had asked for, he had
none to spare. He had himself looked to be sup-
plied from the Armada. He promised to use his
best expedition, but the Duke, meanwhile, must see
to the safety of the fleet.
Unwelcome news to a harassed landsman thrust
into the position of an admiral and eager to be rid
Defeat of the Armada 205
of his responsibilities. If by evil fortune the north-
wester should come down upon him, with the shoals
and sandbanks close under his lee, he would be in a
bad way. Nor was the view behind him calculated
for comfort. Tliere lay the enemy almost within
gunshot, who, though scarcely more than half his
numbers, had hunted him like a pack of blood-
hounds, and, worse than all, in double strength ; for
the Thames squadron — three Queen's ships and
thirty London adventurers — under Lord H. Sey-
mom- and Sir John Hawkins, had crossed in the
night. There they were between him and Cape
Grisnez, and the reinforcements meant plainly
enough that mischief was in the wind.
After a week so trying the Spanish crews would
have been glad of a Sunday's rest if they could have
had it ; but the rough handling which they had gone
through had thrown everything into disorder. The
sick and wounded had to be cared for, torn rigging
looked to, splintered timbers mended, decks scoured,
and guns and arms cleaned up and put to rights.
And so it was that no rest could be allov/ed ; so
much had to be done, and so busy was everyone, that
the usual rations were not served out and the Sun-
day was kept as a fast. In the afternoon the stew-
ards went ashore for fresh meat and vegetables.
They came back with their boats loaded, and the
prospect seemed a little less gloomy. Suddenly,
as the Duke and a group of officers were watching
the English fleet from the San Martin's pooj) deck,
a small smart pinnace, carrying a gun in her bow,
206 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
shot out from Howard's lines, bore down on tlie San
Martin, sailed round her, sending in a sliot or two as
slie passed, and went off unliurt. The Spanish of-
ficers could not help admiring such airy imperti-
nence. Hugo de Mon9ada sent a ball after the
pinnace, which went through her mainsail, but
did no damage, and the pinnace again disappeared
behind the English ships.
So a Spanish officer describes the scene. The
English story says nothing of the pinnace ; but she
doubtless came and went as the Spaniard says, and
for sufficient purpose. The English, too, were in
straits, though the Duke did not dream of it. You
will remember that the last supplies which the
Queen had allowed to the fleet had been issued in the
middle of June, They were to serve for a month,
and the contractors were forbidden to prepare more.
The Queen had clung to her hope that her differ-
ences with Philip were to be settled by the Commis-
sion at Ostend; and she feared that if Drake and
Howard were too well furnished they would venture
some fresh rash stroke on the coast of Spain, Avhicli
might mar the negotiations. Their month's provi-
sions had been stretched to serve for six weeks, and
when the Armada appeared but two full days' ra-
tions remained. On these they had fought their
way up Channel. Something had been brought out
by private exertion on the Dorsetshire coast, and
Seymour had, perhaps, brought a little more. But they
were still in extremity. The contractors had warned
the Government that they could provide nothing
Defeat of the Armada 207
witLout notice, and notice had not been given. The
adventurers were in better state,having been equipped
by private owners. But the Queen's ships in a day
or two more must either go home or their crews
would be starving. They had been on reduced ra-
tions for near two months. Worse than that, they
were still poisoned by the sour beer. The Queen
had changed her mind so often, now ordering the
fleet to prepare for sea, then recalling her instruc-
tions and paying off the men, that those whom How-
ard had with him had been enlisted in haste, had
come on board as they were, and their clothes were
hanging in rags on them. The fighting and the
sight of the flying Spaniards were meat and drink,
and clothing too, and had made them careless of
all else. There was no fear of mutiny ; but there
was a limit to the toughest endm'ance. If the Ar-
mada was left undisturbed a long struggle might be
still before them. The enemy would recover from
its flurry, and Parma would come out from Dunkirk.
To attack them directly in French waters might
lead to perilous complications, while delay meant
famine. The Spanish fleet had to be started from
the roads in some way. Done it must be, and done
immediately.
Then, on that same Sunday afternoon a memor-
able council of war was held in the Ark^s main cabin.
Howard, Drake, Seymour, Hawkins, Martin Fro-
bisher, and two or three others met to consult,
knowing that on them at that moment the liberties
of England were depending. Their resolution was
208 Eiujlisli Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
taken promptly. There was no time for talk. Af-
ter nightfall a strong flood tide would be setting up
along shore to the Spanish anchorage. They would
try what could be done with fire ships, and the ex-
cursion of the pinnace, which was taken for bravado,
was probably for a survey of the Armada's exact
position. Meantime eight useless vessels were
coated with pitch — hulls, spars, and rigging. Pitch
was poured on the decks and over the sides, and
parties were told off to steer them to their destina-
tion and then fire and leave them.
The hours stole on, and twilight passed into dark.
The night was without a moon. The Duke paced
his deck late with uneasy sense of danger. He ob-
served lights moving up and down the English lines,
and imagining that the endemoniada gente — the in-
fernal devils — might be up to mischief, ordered a
sharp look-out. A faint westerly air was cui'ling
the water, and towards midnight the watchers on
board the galleons made out dimly several ships
Avhich seemed to be drifting down upon them. Their
experience since the action off Plymouth had been
so strange and unlooked for that anything unintel-
ligible which the English did was alarming.
The phantom forms drew nearer, and were almost
among them when they broke into a blaze from
water-line to truck, and the two fleets were seen by
the lurid light of the conflagration ; the anchorage,
the walls and windows of Calais, and the sea shining
red far as eye could reach, as if the ocean itself was
burning. Among the dangers which they might
Defeat of the Armada 209
have to encounter, English fireworks had been es-
pecially dreaded by the Spaniards. Fire shij)S — a
fit device of heretics — had worked havoc among the
Spanish troops, when the bridge was blown up, at
Antwerp. They imagined that similar infernal ma-
chines were approaching the Armada. A capable
commander would have sent a few launches to grap-
ple the burning hulks, which of course were now de-
serted, and tow them out of harm's way. Spanish
sailors were not cowards, and would not have
flinched from duty because it might be dangerous ;
but the Duke and Diego Florez lost their heads
again. A signal gun from the San Ilartin ordered
the whole fleet to slip their cables and stand out
to sea.
— -5^ Orders given in panic are doubly unwise, for they
spread the terror in which they originate. The dan-
ger from the fire ships was chiefly from the effect
on the imagination, for they appear to have diifted
by and done no real injury. And it speaks well for
the seamanship and courage of the Spaniards that
they were able, crowded together as they were, at
midnight and in sudden alarm to set their canvas and
clear out without running into one another. They
buoyed their cables, expecting to return for them at
daylight, and with only a single accident, to be
mentioned directly, they executed successfully a
really difiicult manoeuvre.
The Duke was delighted with himself. The fire
ships burned harmlessly out. He had bafiled the
inventions of the endemoniada genfe. He brought
14
210 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
up a league outside the harbour, aud supposed that
the whole Armada had done the same. Unluckily
for himself, he found it at daylight divided into two
bodies. The San 3Iartin with forty of the best ap-
pointed of the galleons were riding together at their
anchors. The rest, two-thirds of the whole, having
no second anchors ready, and inexperienced in
Channel tides and currents, had been lying to. The
west wind was bloAving up. Without seeing where
they ^YeTe going they had drifted to leeward, and
were two leagues o&, towards Gravelines, danger-
ously near the shore. The Duke was too ignorant
to realise the full peril of his situation. He sig-
nalled to them to return and rejoin him. As the
wind and tide stood it was impossible. He pro-
posed to follow them. The pilots told him that if
he did the whole fleet might be lost on the banks.
Towards the land the look of things Avas not more
encouraging.
One accident only had happened the night before.
The Capitana galleass, with Don Hugo de Mon^ada
and eight hundred men on board, had fouled lier
helm in a cable in getting under way and had be-
come unmanageable. The galley slaves disobeyed
orders, or else Don Hugo was as incompetent as his
commander-in-chief. The galleass had gone on the
sands, and as the tide ebbed had fallen over on her
side. Howard, seeing her condition, had followed
her in the Ark with four or five other of the Queen's
ships, and was furiously attacking her with his
boats, careless of neutrality laws. Howard's theory
Defeat of the Armada 211
was, as lie said, to pluck the feathers one by one
from the Spaniard's wing, and here was a feather
worth picking np. The galleass was the most splen-
did vessel of her kind afloat, Don Hugo one of the
greatest of Spanish grandees.
Howard was making a double mistake. He took
the galleass at last, after three hours' fighting. Don
Hugo was killed by a musket ball. The vessel was
plundered, and Howard's men took possession,
meaning to carry her away when the tide rose. The
French authorities ordered him off, threatening to
fire upon him ; and after wasting the forenoon, he
was obliged at last to leave her where she lay.
Worse than this, he had lost three precious hours,
and had lost along with them, in the opinion of the
Prince of Parma, the honours of the great day.
Drake and Hawkins knew better than to waste
time plucking single feathers. The fire ships had
been more effective than they could have dared to
hope. The enemy was broken up. The Duke was
shorn of half his strength, and the Lord had de-
livered him into their hand. He had got under
way, still signalling wildly, and uncertain in which
direction to turn. His uncertainties were ended
for him by seeing Drake bearing down upon him
with the whole English fleet, save those which were
loitering about the galleass. The English had now
the advantage of numbers. The superiority of their
guns he knew already, and their greater speed al-
lowed him no hope to escape a battle. Forty ships
alone were left to him to defend the banner of the
212 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
crusade and the honour of Castile ; but those forty
were the largest and the most j)owerfully armed and
manned that he had, and on board them were
Oquendo, De Leyva, Eecalde, and Bretandona, the
best officers in the Spanish navy next to the lost
Don Pedro.
It was now or never for England. The scene of
the action which was to decide the future of Europe
was between Calais and Dunkirk, a few miles off
shore, and within sight of Parma's camp. There
was no more manceuvring for the weather-gage, no
more fighting at long range. Drake dashed straight
upon his prey as the falcon stoops uj)on its quarry.
A chance had fallen to him which might never re-
turn ; not for the vain distinction of carrying prizes
into English ports, not for the lay of honour which
would fall on him if he could carry off the sacred
banner itself and hang it in the Abbey at West-
minster, but a chance so to handle the Armada that
it should never be seen asrain in Enalish waters, and
deal such a blow on Philip that the Spanish Empire
should reel with it. The English ships had the
same superiority over the galleons which steam-
ers have now over sailing vessels. They had twice
the speed ; they could lie two points nearer to the
wind. Sweeping round them at cable's length,
crowding them in one upon the other, yet never
once giving them a chance to grapple, they hurled
in their cataracts of round shot. Short as was the
powder supply, there was no sparing it that morn-
ing. The hours went on, and still the battle raged,
Defeat of the Armada 213
if battle it could be called where tlie blows were all
dealt on one side and the suffering was all on the
other. Never on sea or land did the Spaniards show
themselves worthier of their great name than on that
day. But from the first they could do nothing. It
was said afterwards in Spain that the Duke showed
the white feather, that he charged his pilot to keep
him out of harm's way, that he shut himself up in
his cabin, buried in woolpacks, and so on. The
Duke had faults enough, but poltroonery was not
one of them. He, who till he entered the English
Channel had never been in action on sea or land,
found himself, as he said, in the midst of the most
furious engagement recorded in the history of the
world. As to being out of harm's way, the standard
at his masthead drew the hottest of the fire upon
him. The San Martins timbers were of oak and a
foot thick, but the shot, he said, went through them
enough to shatter a rock. Her deck was a slaugh-
terhouse ; half his company were killed or wounded,
and no more would have been heard or seen of the
San Martin or her commander had not Oquendo
and De Leyva pushed in to the rescue and enabled
him to creep away under their cover. He himself
saw nothing more of the action after this. The
smoke, he said, Avas so thick that he could make out
nothing, even from his masthead. But all round it
was but a repetition of the same scene. The Span-
ish shot flew high, as before, above the low English
hulls, and they were themselves helpless butts to
the English guns. And it is noticeable and su-
214 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
premely creditable to them that not a single galleon
struck her colours. One of them, after a long duel
with an Englishman, was on the point of sinking.
An English officer, admiring the courage which the
Spaniards had shown, ran out upon his bowsprit,
told them that they had done all which became men,
and urged them to surrender and save their lives.
For answer they cursed the English as cowards and
chickens because they refused to close. The officer
was shot. His fall brought a last broadside on them,
which finished the work. They went down, and the
water closed over them. Rather death to the soh
diers of the Cross than surrender to a heretic.
The deadly hail rained on. In some ships blood
was seen streaming out of the scupper-holes. Yet
there was no yielding ; all ranks showed equal hero-
ism. The priests went up and down in the midst
of the carnage, holding the crucifix before the eyes
of the dying. At midday Howard came up to claim
a second share in a victory which was no longer
doubtful. Towards the afternoon the Spanish fire
slackened. Their powder was gone, and they could
make no return to the cannonade which was still
overwhelming them. They admitted freely after-
wards that if the attack had been continued but two
hours more they must all have struck or gone ashore.
But the English magazines were empty also; the
last cartridge was shot away, and the battle ended
from mere inability to keep it up. It had been
fought on both sides with peculiar determination.
In the English there was the accumulated resent-
Defeat of the Armada 215
ment of thirty years of menace to their country and
their creed, with the enemy in tangible shape at last
to be caught and gTappled with ; in the Spanish,
the sense that if their cause had not brought them
the help they looked for from above, the hon-
our and faith of Castile should not suffer in their
hands.
It was over. The English drew off, regretting
that their thrifty mistress had limited their means
of fighting for her, and so obliged them to leave
their work half done. When the cannon ceased
the Avind rose, the smoke rolled away, and in the
level light of the simset they could see the results
of the action.
A galleon in Recalde's squadron was sinking with
all hands. The San Philip and the San 3Iatteo
Avere drifting dismasted towards the Dutch coast,
where they were afterwards wrecked. Those which
were left with canvas still showing were crawling
slowly after their comrades who had not been
engaged, the spars and rigging so cut up that they
could scarce bear their sails. The loss of life
could only be conjectured, but it had been obviously
terrible. The nor'-wester was blowing up and was
pressing the wounded ships upon the shoals, from
which, if it held, it seemed impossible in their
crippled state they would be able to work off.
In this condition Drake left them for the night,
not to rest, but from any quarter to collect, if he
could, more food and powder. The snake had been
scotched, but not killed. More than half the great
216 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
fleet were far away, untouched by sliot, perhaps
able to fight a second battle if they recovered heart.
To follow, to drive them on the banks if the wind
held, or into the North Sea, anywhere so that he
left them no chance of joining hands with Parma
again, and to use the time before they had rallied
from his blows, that was the present necessity. His
own poor fellows were famished and in rags ; but
neither he nor they had leisiu'e to think of them-
selves. There was but one thought in the whole of
them, to be again in chase of the Hying foe. Howard
was resolute as Drake. All that was possible was
swiftly done. Seymom- and the Thames squadron
were to stay in the Straits and watch Parma. From
every attainable source food and powder were
collected for the rest — far short in both ways of
what ought to have been, but, as Drake said, ' we
were resolved to put on a brag and go on as if we
needed nothing.' Before dawn the admiral and he
were again oil' on the chase.
y-^ The brag was uuueeded. What man could do
had been done, and the rest was left to the elements.
Never again could Spanish seamen be brought to
face the English guns with Medina Sidonia to lead
them. They had a fool at their head. The Invisi-
ble Powers in whom they had been taught to trust
had deserted them. Their confidence was gone
and their spirit broken. Drearily the morning
broke ou the Duke and his consorts the day after
the battle. The Armada had collected in the night.
The nor'-wester had freshened to a gale, and they
Defeat of the Armada 217
were labouring heavily along, making fatal leeway
towards the shoals.
It was St. La^vrence's Day, Philip's patron saint,
whose shoulder-bone he had lately added to the
treasures of the Escurial ; but St. Lawrence was as
heedless as St. Dominic. The San Martin had but
six fathoms under her. Those nearer to the land
signalled five, and right before them they could see
the brown foam of the breakers curling over the
sands, while on their weather-beam, a mile distant
and clinging to them like the shadow of death, were
the English ships which had pursued them from Ply-
mouth like the dogs of the Furies. The Spanish
sailors and soldiers had been without food since
the evening when they anchored at Calais. All
Sunday they had been at work, no rest allowed
them to eat. On the Sunday night they had been
stirred out of their sleep by the fire ships. Mon-
day they had been fighting, and Monday night com-
mitting their dead to the sea. Now they seemed
advancing directly upon inevitable destruction. As
the wind stood there was still room for them to
wear and thus escape the banks, but they would
then have to face the enemy, who seemed only
refraining from attacking them because while they
continued on their present course the winds and
waves would finish the work without help from
man. Eecalde, De Leyva, Oquendo, and other
officers were sent for to the San Martin to consult.
Oquendo came last. ' x\h, Seilor Oquendo,' said the
Duke as the heroic Biscayan stepped on board, ' que,
218 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
haremos ? ' (what sliall we do ?) ' Let your Ex-
cellency bid load the guns again,' was Oquendo's
gallant answer. It could not be. De Le3^va him-
self said that the men would not fight the English
again. Florez advised surrender. The Duke
wavered. It was said that a boat was actually
lowered to go off to Howard and make terms, and
that Oquendo swore that if the boat left the San
Martin on such an errand he Avould fling Florez
into the sea, Oquendo's advice would have, per-
haps, been the safest if the Duke could have taken
it. There were still seventy ships in the Armada
little hurt. The English were ' bragging,' as Drake
said, and in no condition themselves for another
serious engagement. But the temper of the entire
fleet made a courageous course impossible. There
was but one Oquendo. Discipline Avas gone. The
soldiers in their desperation had taken the com-
mand out of the hands of the seamen. Ofiicers and
men alike abandoned hope, and, with no human
prospect of salvation left to them, they flung them-
selves on their knees upon the decks and prayed
the Almighty to have pity on them. But two weeks
were gone since they had knelt on those same decks
on the first sight of the English shore to thank
Him for having brought them so far on an enter-
prise so glorious. Two weeks ; and what weeks !
Wrecked, torn b}^ cannon shot, ten thousand of
them dead or dying — for this was the estimated
loss by battle — the survivors could now but pray to
be delivered from a miserable death by the elements.
Defeat of the Armada 219
In cyclones the wind often changes suddenly back
from north-west to west, from ^yest to south. At
that moment, as if in answer to their petition, one
of these sudden shifts of wind saved them from the
immediate peril. The gale backed round to S. S.
W., and ceased to press them on the shoals. They
could ease their sheets, draw off into open water,
and steer a course up the middle of the North
Sea,
So only that they went north, Drake was content
to leave them unmolested. Once away into the high
latitudes they might go where they w^ould. Neither
Howard nor he, in the low state of their own maga-
zines, desired any unnecessary fighting. If the Ar-
mada turned back they must close with it. If it
held its present coiu-se they must follow it till they
could be assured it would communicate no more for
that summer with the Prince of Parma. Drake
thought they would perhaps make for the Baltic or
some port in Norway, They would meet no hos-
pitable reception from either Swedes or Danes, but
they would probably try. One only imminent
danger remained to be provided against. If they
turned into the Forth, it was still possible for the
Spaniards to redeem their defeat, and even yet
shake Elizabeth's throne. Among the many plans
which had been formed for the invasion of England,
a landing in Scotland had long been the favourite.
Guise had always preferred Scotland when it was
intended that Guise should be the leader. Santa
Cruz had been in close correspondence with Guise
220 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
on this very subject, and many officers in the Ar-
mada must have been acquainted with Santa Cruz's
views. The Scotch Catholic nobles were still sav-
age at Mary Stuart's execution, and had the Armada
anchored in Leitli Eoads with twenty thousand
men, half a million ducats, and a Santa Cruz at its
head, it might have kindled a blaze at that moment
from John o' Groat's Land to the Border.
But no such purpose occurred to the Duke of
Medina Sidonia. He probably knew nothing at all
of Scotland or its parties. Among the many defici-
encies which he had pleaded to Philip as unfitting
him for the command, he had said that Santa Cruz
had acquaintances among the English and Scotch
peers. He had himself none. The small informa-
tion which he had of anything did not go bej^ond
his orange gardens and his tunny hshiug. His chief
merit was that he was conscious of his incapacity ;
and, detesting a service into which he had been
fooled by a hysterical nun, his only anxiety was to
carry home the still considerable fleet which had
been trusted to him without further loss. Beyond
Scotland and the Scotch isles there was the open
ocean, and in the open ocean there were no sand-
banks and no English guns. Thus, with all sail set
he went on before the wind. Drake and Howard
attended him till they had seen him past the Forth,
and knew then that there was no more to fear. It
was time to see to the wants of their own poor fel-
lows, who had endured so patiently and fought so
magnificently. Ou the l.Stli of August they saw the
Defeat of the Armada 221
last of tlie Armada, turned back, and made their
way to the Thames.
But the story has yet to be told of the final fate of
the great 'enterprise of England' (the 'empresa
de luglaterra '), the objc>ct of so many prayers, on
which the hopes of the Catholic world had been
so long and passionately fixed. It had been osten-
tatiously a religious crusade. The preparations
had been attended with peculiar solemnities. In
the eyes of the faithful it was to be the execution of
Divine justice on a wicked princess and a wicked
people. In the eyes of millions whose convictions
were less decided it was an appeal to God's judg-
ment to decide between the Reformation and the
Pope. There was an appropriateness, therefore, if
due to accident, that other causes besides the action
of man should have combined in its overthrow.
The Spaniards were experienced sailors ; a voyage
round the Orkneys and round Ireland to Spain
might be tedious, but at that season of the year
need not have seemed either dangerous or diflicult.
On inquiry, however, it was found that the condi-
tion of the fleet was seriously alarming. The pro-
visions placed on board at Lisbon had been found
unfit for food, and almost all had been thrown into
the sea. The fresh stores taken in at Corunna had
been consumed, and it was found that at the present
rate there would be nothing left in a fortnight.
Worse than all, the water-casks refilled there had
been carelessly stowed. They had been shot through
in the fighting and were empty ; while of clothing
222 English Seamen in the Sixicenih Century
or other comforts for the cold regions which they
were entering no thought had been taken. The
mules and horses were flung overboard, and Scotch
smacks, which had followed the retreating fleet, re-
ported that they had sailed for miles through float-
ing carcasses.
The rations were reduced for each man to a daily
half-pound of biscuit, a pint of water, and a pint
of wine. Thus, sick and hungry, the wounded left
to the care of a medical officer, who went from ship
to ship, the subjects of so many prayers were left to
encounter the climate of the North Atlantic. The
Duke blamed all but himself ; he hanged one poor
captain for neglect of orders, and would have hanged
another had he dared ; but his authority was gone.
They passed the Orknej s in a single body. They
then parted, it was said in a fog ; but each com-
mander had to look out for himself and his men.
In many ships water must be had somewhere, or
they would die. The San 3Iartin, with sixty con-
sorts, went north to the sixtieth parallel. From
that height the pilots promised to take them down
clear of the coast. The wind still clung to the west,
each day blowing harder than the last. When they
braced round to it their wounded spars gave way.
Their rigging parted. With the greatest difficulty
they made at last sufficient offing, and rolled down
somehow out of sight of land, dipping their yards in
the enormous seas. Of the rest, one or two went
down among the Western Isles and became wrecks
there, their crews, or part of them, making their
Defeat of the Armada 223
way tliroiigli Scotland to Flanders. Others went
north to Shetland or the Faroe Islands. Between
thhiy and forty were tempted in upon the Irish
coasts. There were Irishmen in the fleet, who must
have told them that they would find the water there
for which they were perishing, safe harbours, and a
friendly Catholic people ; and they found either
harbours which they could not reach or sea-washed
sands and reefs. They were all wrecked at various
places between Donegal and the Blaskets. Some-
thing like eight thousand half-droAvned wretches
struggled on shore alive. Many were gentlemen,
richly dressed, with velvet coats, gold chains, and
rings. The common sailors and soldiers had been
paid their wages before they started, and each had
a bag of ducats lashed to his waist when he landed
through the surf. The wild Irish of the coast,
tempted by the booty, knocked unknown numbers
of them on the head with their battle-axes, or
stripped them naked and left them to die of the
cold. On one long sand strip in Sligo an English
officer counted eleven hundred bodies, and he heard
that there were as many more a few miles distant.
The better-educated of the Ulster chiefs, the
O'Rourke and O'Donnell, hurried down to stop the
butchery and spare Ireland the shame of murdering
helpless Catholic friends. Many — how many can-
not be said — found protection in their castles. But
even so it seemed as if some inexorable fate pur-
sued all who had sailed in that doomed expedi-
tion. Alonzo de Leyva, with half a hundred young
224 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
Spanish nobles of liigli rank who were under his
special charge, made his way in a galleass into
KilKbeg. He was himself disabled in landing.
O'Donnell received and took care of him and his
companions. After remaining in O'Donnell's castle
for a month he recovered. The weather appeared
to mend. The galleass was patched up, and De
Leyva ventured an attempt to make his way in her
to Scotland. He had passed the worst danger, and
Scotland was almost in sight ; but fate would have
its victims. The galleass stiTick a rock off Dunluce
and went to pieces, and Don Alonzo and the
princely youths who had sailed with him were
washed ashore all dead, to find an unmarked gxave
in Antrim.
Most pitiful of all was the fate of those who fell
into the hands of the Enghsh garrisons in Galway
and Mayo. Galleons had found their w'ay into
Galway Bay — one of them had reached Galway
itself — the crews haK dead with famine and
offering a cask of wine for a cask of water. The
Galway toAvnsmen were human, and tried to feed
and care for them. Most were too far gone to be
revived, and died of exhaustion. Some might have
recovered, but recovered they would be a danger to
the State. The English in the West of Ireland
were but a handful in the midst of a sullen, half-
conquered population. The ashes of the Desmond
rebellion were still smoking, and Dr. Sanders and
his Legatine Commission were fresh in immedi-
ate memory. The defeat of the Armada in the
Defeat of the Armada 225
Channel could only have been vaguely heard of.
All that English officers could have accurately
known must have been that an enormous expedition
had been sent to England by Philip to restore
the Pope ; and Spaniards, they found, were landing
in thousands in the midst of them with arms and
money; distressed for the moment, but sure, if
alloAved time to get their strength again, to set
Connaught in a blaze. They had no fortresses to
hold so many prisoners, no means of feeding them,
no men to spare to escort them to Dublin. They
were responsible to the Queen's Government for
the safety of the country. The Spaniards had not
come on any errand of mercy to her or hers. The
stern order went out to kill them all wherever they
might be found, and two thousand or more w^ere
shot, hanged, or put to the sword. Dreadful !
Yes, but war itself is dreadful and has its own ne-
cessities.
The sixty ships which had followed the San
Martin succeeded at last in getting round Cape
Clear, but in a condition scarcely less miserable
than that of their companions who had perished
in Ireland. Half their companions died — died of
untended wounds, hunger, thirst, and famine fever.
The survivors were moving skeletons, more shadows
and ghosts than living men, with scarce strength
left them to draw a rope or handle a tiller. In
some ships there was no water for fourteen days.
The weather in the lower latitudes lost part of its
violence, or not one of them would have seen Spain
15
226 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
again. As it was they drifted on outside Scilly and
into the Bay of Biscay, and in the second week of
September they dropped in one by one. Becalde,
with better success than the rest, made Corunna.
The Duke, not knowing where he was, found him-
self in sight of Corunna also. The crew of the San
Martin were prostrate, and could not work her in.
They signalled for help, but none came, and they
dropped away to leeward to Bilbao. Oquendo had
fallen olf still farther to Santander, and the rest of
the sixty arrived in the following days at one or
other of the Biscay ports. On board them, of the
thirty thousand who had left those shores but two
months before in high hope and passionate en-
thusiasm, nine thousand only came back alive — if
alive they could be called. It is touching to read
in a letter from Bilbao of their joy at warm Spanish
sun, the sight of the grapes on the white walls,
and the taste of fresh home bread and water again.
But it came too late to save them, and those
whose bodies might have rallied died of broken
hearts and disappointed dreams. Santa Cruz's old
companions could not siu'vive the ruin of the
Spanish navy. Recalde died two days after he
landed at Bilbao. Santander was Oquendo's home.
He had a wife and children there, but he refused
to see them, turned his face to the wall, and died
too. The common seamen and soldiers were too
weak to help themselves. They had to be left on
board the poisoned ships till hospitals could be
prepared to take them in. The authorities of
Defeat of the Armada 227
Church and State did all that men could do ; but
the case was past help, and before September
was out all but a few hundred needed no further
care.
Philip, it must be said for him, spared nothing to
relieve the misery. The widows and orphans were
pensioned by the State. The stroke which had
fallen was received with a dignified submission to
the inscrutable purposes of Heaven. Diego Florez
escaped with a brief imprisonment at Burgos.
None else were punished for faults which lay
chiefly in the King's own presumption in imagining
himself the instrument of Providence.
The Duke thought himself more sinned against
than sinning. He did not die, like Eecalde or
Oquendo, seeing no occasion for it. He flung
down his command and retired to his palace at St.
Lucan ; and so far was Philip from resenting the
loss of the Armada on its commander, that he con-
tinued him in his governorship of Cadiz, where
Essex found him seven years later, and where he
ran from Essex as he had run from Drake.
The Spaniards made no attempt to conceal the
greatness of their defeat. Unwilling to allow that
the Upper Powers had been against them, they set
it frankly down to the superior fighting powers of
the English.
The English themselves, the Prince of Parma
said, were modest in their victory. They thought
little of their OAvn gallantry. To them the defeat
and destruction of the Spanish fleet was a declara-
228 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century
tion of the Almighty in the cause of their country
and the Protestant faith. Both sides had appealed
to Heaven, and Heaven had spoken.
It was the turn of the tide. The wave of the
reconquest of the Netherlands ebbed from that
moment. Parma took no more towns from the
Hollanders. The Catholic peers and gentlemen of
England, who had held aloof from the Established
Church, waiting ad illud tcrnfms for a religious revo-
lution, accepted the verdict of Providence. They
discovered that in Anglicanism they could keep the
faith of their fathers, yet remain in communion
with their Protestant fellow-countrymen, use the
same liturgy, and pray in the same temples. '' For
the first time since Elizabeth's father broke the
bonds of Kome the English became a united nation,
joined in loyal enthusiasm for the Queen, and were
satisfied that thenceforward no Italian priest should
tithe or toll in her dominions.
But all that, and all that went with it, the pass-
ing from Spain to England of the sceptre of the
seas, must be left to other lectures, or other lectur-
ers who have more years before them than I. My
ovra theme has been the poor Protestant adventur-
ers who fought through that perilous week in the
English Channel and saved their country and their
country's liberty.